Concrete Design In The Early 20th Century

It is common knowledge that steel structures revolutionized building design during the early 20th century. It is less well known, however, the impact concrete has had on building design - particularly in skyscrapers. Concrete is an old building material, dating well back into prehistoric times. Yet its application for building tall structures was only truly begun to realized in the early 20th century. Concrete systems in skyscrapers are a unique brand of structure. They incorporate many different elements, and have a variety of different requirements. Many buildings constructed out of concrete were not built until after the 1960's, but the foundations for proceeding with concrete were laid before then. Concrete construction opened the door

Ernest Leslie Ransome created a new system for reinforcing concrete. He cold bent bar stock, making twisted bars. This allowed for much greater bonding, and was also the father to the rebar that we are familiar with today. Ransome also, between 1902 and 1904, patented a system which used an exterior belt course to provide structure to the walls and to support the load from the floors above. Around the same time, Ransome also produced the first precast system. Together, these two innovations in the world of concrete allowed for much more uses of concrete in buildings. A concrete core to the building could be created, with a curtain wall exterior used to seal of the building from the elements. A final early breakthrough in concrete came from Robert Maillart. Instead of using the typical beam and girder system for constructing a floor, he created the floor slab method. This helped to push designers away from the preconceived notion that beam and girders were really the only way to construct floors. During all this time, there were many other inventors, scientists, and engineers who were striving to understand concrete. All of these breakthroughs, along with concretes natural abilities to resist fire and reduce noise, made it a superb choice for constructing factories, ware houses, and other industrial buildings. The difficulties once these building types had been established with concrete was to then convince the general public that concrete could be used more bold, more public, projects such as sky