Building techniques, construction methods and strategies are explained and displayed everyday on on-line platforms, through social media or specialized websites, supporting the idea that architecture and building is a democratic, shared and collective phenomenon. Proprietary knowledge or systems did not really exist until the 15th century. Subsequently during industrialization, the number of patents filed for different building methodologies exploded morphing architecture and construction from artisan based common processes to fragmented and enterprise directed practices.
Even the most mundane construction methods became the object of published patents. Building types, assemblies, processes, machines were the subject of industrial secrets to be controlled and circumscribed by copyright laws. Companies portrayed themselves as holders of a unique production method, which could only be used through licensing or contracting.
What is known today as a building platform, commercialized to achieve mass production, is in a sense a by-product of patent culture. The Ballinger Company of Philadelphia, a collective of architects and engineers obtained a patent in 1921 (USRE15133E) for a method for constructing saw-tooth roofs. This type of roof is recognised as the icon of the factory building. The roof cross section is composed of a series of inclined and vertical planes (creating a profile similar to a saw blade) alternating from opaque roof (inclined) to transparent (vertical) for daylighting interior spaces. In their company catalogue published in 1924, the Ballinger Company promoted the Super-span Saw-tooth building as a novel way of covering industrial properties improving the quality of interior of factories through natural light and ventilation. The Ballinger company's proprietary component was a super-span truss, where the inclined and vertical edges outlined a horizontal filigree beam, spanning open spaces unrestricted from interior supporting columns, an improvement to regular saw-tooth construction, which required beams and columns at each roof valley intersection. The company preferred to be mandated for both architectural and engineering services for their buildings, however they would licence their system to other builders as well.
Hennebique, Freyssinet, Nervi, Fuller, and their modern acolytes used patents to monopolize their architectural obsessions. The patent evidenced knowledge of a topic and in the best cases looked into the existing art outlining a complete understanding of a technique. Company literature structured this knowledge and offered design guidelines for deploying proprietary systems.
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| Page from Super-span truss catalogue |
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