Reinforced concrete is a truly modern material. Although already employed by Roman builders who employed pozzolans as the binder in a type of liquid stone, it was throughout the 19thand early 20thcenturies that the material was rediscovered and industrialized. The invention of Portland cement by Joseph Aspin (1824 patent) and later the steel mesh reinforced flower pots patented by Joseph Monier (1867) drove a plethora of explorations from Thomas Edison’s continuous cast housing system to Enest Ransome’s reinforced precast concrete block system. Reinforced concrete transformed building, as its properties seemed super natural: the compressive strength of stone linked with the tensile resistance of steel contained in a fireproof monolithic structure.
Of all reinforced concrete’s protagonists François Hennebique’s contribution was arguably the most militant as he harnessed the power of architectural media and his own publication «le Béton Armé (1898)» to promote, inform and disseminate the potentials of Ferro-cement. This master industrialist was able to seize interest and reinvent construction on a simple idea and its description: Incase a steel or iron beam in concrete and it gains protection against fire. Replace the beam’s bottom and upper flanges with an alignment of smaller steel bars and then the beam’s web with regularly placed stirrups/loops to hold the bars in place and you have an ideal structural system which combines the advantages of concrete and steel in one thin «indestructible and fire-proof» floor system. This same principal could be applied to girders and columns and to any building type.
Hennebique exemplified the idea of the new master builder uniting manufacturing potentials with propaganda to deliver new products to market. Hennebique’s magazine, leaflets and brochures were used as influencing tools, more than an engineer or entrepreneur, Hennebique was a master influencer using his message to garner interest and projects. Winner of the Grand Prize at the 1900 Universal exhibition in Paris he advocated for the use of «fire proof» concrete in every building and proposed a new model for commercial partnerships between his office, le bureau d’études, with his version of the system’s franchisees, and engineers and architects. His model of industrial collaboration cultivated his reinforced concrete empire from 6 projects in 1892 to 1235 projects in 1899.
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| Illustration from Hennebique System catalogue |
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