IRON, GLASS, CONCRETE, & STEEL
THE CREATIVE PROCESS: HOW TO WRITE A PAPER, STEP BY STEP (Read this before you start researching your first formal analysis.) THE INDUSTRIAL
AGE "In the second half of the 19th century, dislocations brought about by the Industrial Revolution became overwhelming. Many were shocked by the hideous new urban districts of factories and workers’ housing and by the deterioration of public taste among the newly rich. For the new modes of transportation, canals, tunnels, bridges, and railroad stations, architects were employed only to provide a cultural veneer. "The Crystal Palace (1850–51; reconstructed 1852–54) in London, a vast but ephemeral exhibition hall, was the work of Sir Joseph Paxton, a man who had learned how to put iron and glass together in the design of large greenhouses. It demonstrated a hitherto undreamed-of kind of spatial beauty, and in its carefully planned building process, which included prefabricated standard parts, it foreshadowed industrialized building and the widespread use of cast iron and steel. "Also important in its innovative use of metal was the great tower (1887–89) of Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832–1923) in Paris. In general, however, the most gifted architects of the time sought escape from their increasingly industrialized environment by further development of traditional themes and eclectic styles. "Two contrasting but equally brilliantly conceived examples are Charles Garnier’s sumptuous Paris Opéra (1861–75) and Henry Hobson Richardson’s grandiose Trinity Church (1872–77) in Boston." ("Architecture." Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 2002. qtd in "EBSCOhost" EBSCO Industries, Inc. 2008. 17 Mar. 2008.
Henri Labrouste (1801-1865) Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève
"Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève [Ste-Genevieve Library] ... was designed in Neo-Renaissance style by the architect Henri Labrouste, although its underlying metal structure relates it to cast iron architecture (examples of which are the Eiffel Tower or The Crystal Palace); it was built between 1843 and 1851." ("Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève - Wikipedia." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioth%C3%A8que_Sainte-Gen evi%C3%A8ve)
Entrance vestibule. Note masonry piers. Reading room. Note central iron colonnade which supports barrel vaulted ceiling.
Athenaeum, Decimus Burton (London, 1830) Palm House at Kew Gardens (Decimus Burton, 1844)
"While the design of the Palm House was Burton's, the extraordinary engineering and construction work was very much Richard Turner's. The technology was borrowed from shipbuilding and it can be seen that the design is essentially an upturned hull. "The unprecedented use of light but strong wrought iron 'ship's beams' made the great open span possible, giving room for the unhindered growth of tall specimen palms. "For its tropical plants, the Palm House needed heat. Originally, the boilers were in the basement, heating water pipes under iron gratings on which the plants stood in great teak tubs, or in clay pots on benches. "The smoke from the boilers was led away through pipes in a tunnel under the Palm House Pond to the elegant Italianate Campanile smoke stack 150 m (490 ft) away. The tunnel also housed a small railway which transported coal the the Palm House boilers. "However,
the basement flooded in 1848, it took several years to lower the level
of the water by pumps. In 1853 the floor level of the boiler room was
raised, which had the unfortunate effect of reducing the amount of draught
to the flues, badly affecting the efficiency of the heating system and
making some parts of the Palm House too cold." ("Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew: History and Heritage: Places: Palm House - construction"
http://www.kew.org/heritage/places/palmhouse_construction.html
) Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) "In 1826, a twenty-three-year-old named Joseph Paxton, who had been trained at Kew Gardens, was appointed as head gardener at Chatsworth." ("Chatsworth House - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatsworth_House) Greenhouse at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, for the Duke of Devonshire
Exterior and interior views during the Great Exhibition As reconstructed, with Paxton's landscaping, at Sydenham Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 – 1859) "British engineer, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges and tunnels, hence revolutionising public transport and modern day engineering." ( "Isambard Kingdom Brunel - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel)
"The Royal Albert Bridge [sometimes called the Brunel Bridge] was the third in a series of three notable wrought iron bridges built in the period, and was influenced by the preceding two, both by Robert Stephenson."
Brunel started his engineering career building bridges Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) " ...[I]inspired
by Augustus Pugin to join the Gothic revival of the Victorian era...
Later, Scott went beyond copying mediaeval English gothic for his Victorian
Gothic or Gothic Revival buildings, and began to introduce features
from other styles and European countries as evidenced in his glorious
Midland red-brick construction, the Midland Grand Hotel
at London's St Pancras Station, from which approach
Scott believed a new style might emerge." ("George
Gilbert Scott - Wikipedia"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gilbert_Scott) St Pancras Station with the Grand Midland Hotel (London, 1868)
Exterior Plan and elevation
Benjamin Woodward and T. N. Deane Oxford Museum
"Contrast the iron architecture in the photograph [above] with the stone capitals in the interior and the stone windows on the exterior. Note the way the architects and stone carvers together produce a kind of Victorian cathedral of knowledge, whose contents and iconography come from the natural sciences — an approach followed quite brilliantly some years later in the interior and exterior of the Natural History Museum, London. "How does the Oxford Museum differ from the use of iron in railway structures, such as London's St. Pancras Railway Station and its attached Great Midland Hotel, or does it differ at all? After all, Scott placed his revival gothic hotel (with bits of Dutch Renaissance thrown in) in front of Barlow's great iron-and-glass train shed, and almost everyone experiences the station by coming in through the gothic entrances. Didn't Woodward and Deane do much the same thing by making the museum vistor pass through gothic stone walls before encountering the iron-and-glass roof? Didn't they simply wrap the iron-and-glass on all four sides, instead of just one, but to the same effect?" ("Early Techno-Gothic: The Oxford University Natural History Museum" http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/art/architecture/oxford/9.html John Augustus Roebling "At the time [1883] it opened, [the Brooklyn Bridge] was the longest suspension bridge in the world — 50% longer than any previously built — and it has become a treasured landmark. Additionally, for several years the towers were the tallest structures in the Western Hemisphere.... Roebling designed a bridge and truss system that was six times as strong as he thought it needed to be. Because of this, the Brooklyn Bridge is still standing when many of the bridges built around the same time have vanished into history and been replaced. This is also in spite of the substitution of inferior quality wire in the cabling supplied by the contractor J. Lloyd Haigh — by the time it was discovered, it was too late to replace the cabling that had already been constructed. Roebling determined that the poorer wire would leave the bridge four rather than six times as strong as necessary, so it was eventually allowed to stand, with the addition of 250 cables. Diagonal cables were installed from the towers to the deck, intended to stiffen the bridge. This turned out to be unnecessary, but they are kept for their distinctive beauty." ("Brooklyn Bridge - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Bridge)
Gustave Eiffel Maria Pia
Bridge (Portugal, 1877) Auguste Perret "Auguste Perret (February 12, 1874 - February 25, 1954) was a French architect and a leader and specialist in concrete construction. In 2005 his post-WWII reconstruction of Le Havre was declared by UNESCO one of the World Heritage Sites. "He worked on a new interpretation of the neo-classical style. He continued to carry the banner of nineteenth century rationalism after Viollet-le-Duc. His efforts to utilize historical typologies executed in new materials were largely eclipsed by the younger media-savvy architect Le Corbusier and his ilk. "Perret is famous for several apartment buildings which depart from the typical Parisian flat, and a reinforced concrete cathedral in Le Raincy, France, named Notre-Dame du Raincy (1922-1923). He helped with the reconstruction of the French city of Le Havre after more than 80,000 inhabitants of that city were left homeless following World War II. "Perret is a direct link to the generation that followed him. Le Corbusier worked in his studio, eventually becoming an industry associate and a competitor." ("Auguste Perret - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Perret) Notre-Dame du Raincy (1922) "The value of reinforced concrete lay in its supportive strength. Careful calculation enabled it to be used as flooring capable of carrying large machines and absorbing their repititive rhythmic action even several stories above the ground. Another development, particularly useful where heavy equipment was needed at different levels of a building and at different locations on each level, was pre-stressed concrete. When reinforced concrete is carrying a heavy load, although it may be adequate to this task it is, nevertheless, constantly under a downward-acting pressure which slowly and inevitably will weaking the supporting material. If, however, the load can be predetermined, the reinforced concrete can have a degree of stress introduced into its manufacture which will be counter-acted when the load is in place, so that it is, in effect, at rest, unstressed. A further refinement of the method is known as post-stressed reinforced concrete." (Trewin Copplestone, Twentieth-Century World Architecture, Brian Trodd Publishing House, 1991) Le Corbusier (1887 – 1965), was a Swiss-born architect, designer, urbanist, writer, and painter. He worked with Auguste Perret in Paris in 1908 and worked with Peter Behrens in Berlin in 1911.
"Le Corbusier taught at his old school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds during World War I, not returning to Paris until the war was over. During these four years in Switzerland, he worked on theoretical architectural studies using modern techniques. Among these was his project for the Dom-ino House (1914-1915). "This model proposed an open floor plan consisting of concrete slabs supported by a minimal number of thin, reinforced concrete columns around the edges, with a stairway providing access to each level on one side of the floor plan. "This design became the foundation for most of his architecture for the next ten years. Soon he would begin his own architectural practice with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967), a partnership that would last until 1940." ( "Le Corbusier" http://eng.archinform.net/arch/346.htm?pnr=51#Early_career:_the_villas.2C_1914-1930)  Villa
Citrohan (project, 1920)
THE CREATIVE PROCESS: HOW TO WRITE A PAPER, STEP BY STEP Read this before you start researching your first formal analysis. |
Committee's Design for the Exhibition Hall
Paxton's alternative design, 1850
The Crystal Palace under construction 
Train shed 
"As J. Mordaunt Crook points out, 'the
Oxford Museum became a legend: an attempt by an architect of genius
— who died while his genius was unripe — [at] devising 'an
iron style.' In 1855 it had been hailed as 'an experiment . . . of the
greatest importance to architecture'; an attempt 'to try how Gothic
art could deal with those railway materials, iron, and glass.'
"Unfortunately, as Crook adds, contemporaries generally
agreed that Woodward and T. N. Deane had produced not a successful example
of pioneering architecture but 'a disappointing pastiche, this time
in metal rather than stone. The Building News was correct in
its prediction that Skidmore's roof 'would not convert the world to
a belief in the universal applicability of Crystal Palace architecture
Gothicised.' 'We consider the principle of [Skidmore's iron roofing]
to be erroneous,' the Ecclesiologist concluded in 1861. 'After
all, this is merely a stone-vaulting system in iron.'
Dom-ino House
(project, 1914)
