It has been
documented by architectural and construction historians that engineers were the
first to explore the new materials and processes generated by the industrial
revolution. Engineers helped forge many of the industrial city's archetypal
structures: bridges and towers, rail stations, tall commercial buildings and
industrial hangars all developed with the emerging manufacturing knowledge for
iron, steel and reinforced concrete.
Engineering’s contribution
to modernity was remarkable and notably highlighted by the invention of steel
reinforced concrete systems for building. Whether the Kahn Truss system of
reinforcement developed in the U.S.A. or the Hennebique system devised in
France, these early 20th century engineers and their initiatives were central
in reforming building techniques. Engineers were and remain an important part
of architecture’s creative process.
Within this
tradition, August E. Komendant’s work as a structural engineer helped stimulate
innovation in construction, engineering and architecture. Komendant was
educated in Germany and practised mostly in the United States after World War
II. He is well-known for his lasting collaboration with Louis Kahn and his work
on Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 prototype for the Man and his World Universal Exhibit
held in Montreal, Canada in 1967. Both collaborations, with Kahn and Safdie,
produced buildings synonymous with 20th century modernity.
Komendant's
research in reinforced concrete was pioneering and is exemplified by his
experiments in modular building aimed to improve construction in matters of efficiency,
strength and quality. His patented Modular Multi-floor Building was composed of
rectangular prisms cast on site and stacked vertically between horizontal floor
slabs.
The distinctively
inventive portion of Komendant’s strategy was that each extruded rectangular prism
was not only stacked over the floor slabs as in a simple building block
strategy, but each prism was stitched vertically through holes in the prisms’
walls and floor slabs with tension cables. Each cable passed through slabs and walls
and would then be stressed to create a taut sandwich effect between all the
system’s components. This post-tension pre-stressed system produced greater
strength and rigidity and optimized concrete’s structural efficiency. The
overall structural strategy produced a rigid waffle type edge slab building,
which could be cast on site reducing the inconveniences linked to transporting
heavy prefabricated concrete systems.
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| Patent drawing dated April 1, 1980 |
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