THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:

THE TRIUMPH OF THE IRON MASTERS

Sukhjit Kaur Sidhu

Lecture Outline
1. Introduction
2. Innovations
3. Transportation Improvements
4. New Technology in Material
5. New Technology in Iron
6. New Technology in Iron + Glass
7. New Technology in Iron + Steel
8. New Technology in Reinforced Concrete
Intro duction
 By the opening of the 19th century, the confidence apparent in the
architecture of the age of elegance in the preceding century had
evaporated.

There was a revolution, the Industrial Revolution

–happened roughly 1750 to 1850

Although it was not seen as a revolution but only new ways of making things

Began with the exploitation of natural resources, especially water & coal,
found its first achievements in Britain & then spread with a relentless force
throughout the world.

The urban population dramatically increased, towns & cities multiplied in

numbers & size – a new urban society emerged.

The demand of new buildings was greater than ever before. Many of them
were designed to satisfy the needs & demands of a changing society.
Inno vations
INNOVATIONS

+ TEXTILE - water frame

- spinning Jenny
- spinning Mule

+ STEAM POWER
- The improved steam engine
invented by James Watt was
initially used for coal mining but
later applied to power machines.
+ TEXTILE MANUFACTURER
- In the early 18th century, industry
based on wool – produced by
Individual artisans – cottage industry.
- but with new innovations like spinning
jenny
– Britain’s cotton goods became world
dominant.
+ METTALURGY
- New process of iron refining using
coke fuel in blast furnace.
- The ultimate source of the availability
of iron for building.
- Leads to experimentation with their
product as a building material in Iron
Bridge, 1779, a collaboration between
Thomas Pritchard, a local architect,
and Abraham Darby, the manager of
a foundry.
+ MINING
- adoption of James Watt's more
efficient steam engine from the
1770s reduced the fuel costs of
engines, making mines more
profitable.

+ MACHINE TOOLS
- enabled manufacturing
machines to be made.
+ GLASS MAKING
- new method of
producing glass –
cylinder process.
- used to create sheet
glass.
- allowed larger panes
of glass to be created
without interruptions –
Crystal Palace

+ EFFECTS ON AGRICULTURE
- Seed Drill – distributed
seeds across the land
- Threshing machine –
ploughing fields
Trans portation
TRANSPORT IN BRITAIN
+ COASTAL SAIL
- Use of sea near Britain for transportation.
+ RIVERS
- use of major rivers
+ CANALS
- began to be built in the late eighteenth century to link the
major manufacturing centres in the Midlands and north with
seaports and with London.
+ ROADS
- In 1720’s, turnpike trusts were set up to charge tolls &
maintain some roads.
+ RAILWAYS
- Construction of major railways connecting the larger cities
and towns began in the 1830s
- helped Britain's trade enormously, providing a quick and
easy way of transport.
 New
Tech nology
in
Material
 Iron
Glass R.C
/Steel
 New
Tech nology

Iron
 “With iron, an artificial building
material appeared for the first time in
the history of architecture.”
Walter Benjamin
Paris: Capital of the 19th Century, 1930.
NEW TECHNOLOGY – IRON
• The structural possibilities of iron were
first demonstarted on a dramatic scale
in England in 1777 at Coalbrookdale
by the iron bridge that crossed the river
Severn.
• Used for columns, frames, together with
hollow clay tile floor to provide a
fireproof construction for the mills.
• By the beginning of the 19th century
that system developed in to a
complete internal skeleton.

Properties of iron:
•Cheaper than stone
•More resilient and stronger than stone
•Better fire resistance than wood.
•Casting process makes it ideal material for mass production
and prefabricated components.
 USAGE OF IRON BY ARCHITECTS

• Brighton Pavillion (1815 – 1823)

John Nash

– Novelty of materials fitted in with follies of the

time.
– Designed in the Maharajah idiom.
USAGE OF IRON BY ARCHITECTS

Industrial structural components in iron Cast iron street lamp detail

USAGE OF IRON BY ARCHITECTS

Cast iron filigree work

Sea-side covered walkway

 USAGE OF IRON BY ARCHITECTS

Cast iron structure for train platform

Cast iron details of Preston Station, UK

 USAGE OF IRON BY ARCHITECTS

Library of St Genevieve, Paris,

Henri Labrouste (1838 -1850)

• Building is of bearing masonry and iron

spans.

• In the style of the Renaissance revival.

• One of the greatest cultural buildings of

the nineteenth century to use iron in a
prominent, visible way.
 USAGE OF IRON BY ARCHITECTS

• England’s most daring adventures with iron were

– railroad stations and
– bridges.
NEW TECHNOLOGY IN INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS

Crown Street station, Liverpool. (1830)

John Foster II and George Stephenson

• The train shed became the testing structural type of wide span
construction.
• By 1854, with the use of iron, a clear span of 65 meters (213 feet) was
reached New Street Station, Birmingham.
NEW TECHNOLOGY IN IRON BRIDGES

• Building of bridges started earlier as a necessity to support the rise of

industry.
• Thomas Telford (1757-1834), a rail engineer and highway expert,
dominated the early years of iron-bridge building.
• Ingenuity was endowing metal bridges with architectural grace.
NEW TECHNOLOGY IN IRON BRIDGES

• Oldest iron bridge in England was

designed by Abraham Derby and TF
Pritchard in Shropshire, England:
– The Coalbrookdale Bridge, 1779.
• Span of 30 meters (100 feet).
• Single semi-circular arch made up
of 5 cast iron ribs, each composed
of only 2 members.
• Parts assembled through
interlocking joints and wedges.
 NEW TECHNOLOGY IN HIGH RISE STRUCTURE

The Eiffel Tower

• Named after its designer, engineer Gustavo Eiffel

• Built entirely by iron

• Located beside the Seine River, Paris

• The tallest building in Paris

• 325m / 1063ft (81 levels in a conventional building)

• More than 200,000,000 people have
visited the tower since its construction
in 1889

• It was the world's tallest tower in 1889

upon construction

• Built between 1887 - 1889 as the

entrance arch for the Exposition
Universally ( marking the celebration
of the French Revolution)

• Initially the target of harsh criticism

and now the symbol of Paris (also
Romance)
 New
Tech nology

Iron+Glass
• Increased use of iron and glass revolutionized traditional
construction methods and affected the shaping of space.
• Glass and iron technology radicallized architecture as when Romans
invented concrete (plasticity and scale).
• Technology to meet new functional requirements of new building
types:
(a) Urban;
– Banks
– Government offices
– Shopping arcades
(b) Industrial;
– Transportation - docks/ railroad stations/ bridges/ viaducts/
engine houses.
– Industrial complexes – breweries/ maltings/ mills/ factories/
farmeries/ docks
 NEW TECHNOLOGY IN COMMERCIAL BUILDING

Halle Aux Bles, Paris

1763 - 1766

• Le Camus de Mézières constructed a

circular stone hall of sixty-eight meters
to house the sale of wheat and flour.
• First full iron and glass dome
• Francois Joseph Belanger –
“new conception for the first time in this
genre which gives Europe the idea.”
 NEW TECHNOLOGY IN COMMERCIAL BUILDING

Bon Marche Department Store

Louis-Charles Boileau - 1876

• New technology in commercial

architecture – the department store.
• Iron and glass made possible the
opening up of the entire ground floor
and the mezzanine to the outside with
windows of plate glass.
• Central court / atrium with glazed roof
 USAGE OF IRON + GLASS

Library of St Genevieve, Paris,

Henri Labrouste (1838 -1850)

• The library fuses the technology of the

industrial revolution, as represented by
the cast iron and glass train shed, with
traditional stone construction.

• The roof structure is of cast iron but

encrusted with decoration to disguise
the connections. The contrast between
the delicacy of the cast iron roof ridges
and slender columns with the six foot
deep stone wall produces a compelling
architecture.
 NEW TECHNOLOGY IN EXHIBITION CENTRES

Crystal Palace

• It is one building that brought together the discoveries of the period together
& became the most influential innovation of its time.

• Conceived by Queen Victoria’s consort, prince Albert, the Great Exhibition

was held in Hyde Park in London in the specially constructed Crystal Palace.

• The Crystal Palace was originally designed by Sir Joseph Paxton in only 10
days and was a huge iron goliath with over a million feet of glass.

• Housed the Great Exhibition of 1851.

• The Crystal palace was prefabricated, it was light & transparent, supported &
enclosed by iron & glass.
NEW TECHNOLOGY IN EXHIBITION CENTRES

Crystal Palace, 1851

• Designed by Joseph Paxton, a head gardener at Chatsworth, in

Derbyshire,
• Here he had experimented with glass and iron in the creation of large
greenhouses, and had seen something of their strength and durability.
• He applied this knowledge to the plans for the Great Exhibition
building — with astounding results.
 NEW TECHNOLOGY IN EXHIBITION CENTRES

• Its erection depended upon railway

transport & sophisticated
organization on the site.
• Constructed in 9 months
• Could be taken down & put up
again, as it was at Sydenham in
1852, where it survived until it was
destroyed by fire in 1936.
 New
Tech nology

Iron+Steel
IRON + STEEL IN TALL BUILDINGS

• In the 1880’s the earliest tall iron framed buildings were constructed
in Chicago.
• Early prefabricated Iron construction in the early and mid 1850s
proved particularly dangerous in fires as the iron rapidly lost its
strength in the heat.

Early iron framed building on Stewart Street, New York,

mid 1850’s
NEW STRUCTURAL MATERIAL – IRON + STEEL IN
TALL BUILDINGS
• William Le Baron Jenney (1832 – 1907)
• First architect to propose the framing of the early skyscrapers to be
in a new-found alloy – steel.

Jenney's method of Steel frame

construction
NEW STRUCTURAL MATERIAL – IRON + STEEL IN
TALL BUILDINGS
Second Leiter Building, Chicago
(1888-89)
William Le Baron Jenney

• First instance of true skyscraper

construction.
– Fireproofed metal frame that
supports its own weight as well as
the weight of all the walls and
floors that regulate the functional
organisation of the interior.
– No load bearing masonry
structure.
 NEW STRUCTURAL MATERIAL – GLASS + STEEL IN
TALL BUILDINGS

The Reliance Building (1890-5)

Daniel Burnham (1846-1912) and John Wellborn
Root (1850-91)

• Internationally recognized as the direct ancestor

of today's glass-and-steel skyscrapers.
• Extremely narrow piers, mullions, and spandrels,
all covered with cream-colored terra cotta
– decorated with Gothic-style tracery,
– divide wide expanses of glass and
– clearly delineate the interior steel framework
that supports the building.
 New
Tech nology

R.C
NEW STRUCTURAL MATERIAL – REINFORCED
CONCRETE

• Serious emergence in the 1860’s.

• Introduction of steel reinforcement changed concrete from heavy,
inert and stone-like material to a tough resilient one fit for very thin
articulation.
• Francois Hennebique (1842 – 1921)
NEW STRUCTURAL MATERIAL – REINFORCED
CONCRETE
• Francois Hennebique
(1842 – 1921)
• Father of modern
reinforced concrete
and techniques.
• Idea of monolithic
joints:
• Use of bars of
cylindrical sections,
bent round, hooked
together and ‘coated’
in concrete.
• Integral to this system is
the increase of
reinforcements and the
binding of joints with
stirrup hoops to resist
local and shear
stresses.
 NEW STRUCTURAL MATERIAL – REINFORCED
CONCRETE
Notre Dame Le Raincy (1922 – 1924)
• Perfected system where reinforced column / piers replace load
bearing partition walls.
• Visually and structurally, concrete is made to behave in the ways of
classical architecture.
The End