STRUCTURAL DESIGN FOR ARCHITECTURE

Structural Design for Architecture

Fig. 4.4 Apartment block, 25 bis rue Franklin, Paris,

1902-05, Auguste Perret, architect. By using a reinforced

concrete frame structure Perret was able, with this build-

ing, to redefine the layout and fenestration of the tradi-

tional Paris apartment. The building also made a

significant contribution to the development of a new archi-

tectural aesthetic based on the technology of the skeleton

frame.

legacy from his master, but reinforced concrete

was, for Le Corbusier, the ideal structural

material. Its excellent structural properties

placed little restriction on architectural form

but above all other considerations were the

newness of the material and the fact that it

was a product of an industrialised process. It

was therefore an appropriate medium with

which to develop an architectural language for

the twentieth century - the age of rationalism,

industry and social idealism.

That Le Corbusier appreciated the physical

properties of reinforced concrete is well

demonstrated by his famous drawing of the

structural core of the Domino House of 1914

(Fig. 4.5). This showed that he understood the

two-way-spanning capability of the material

and knew of its ability to cantilever beyond the

perimeter columns. His realisation that the

integral stair of this small structure could be

used to brace it in the two principal directions

led to the adoption of very slender supporting

columns. The structure therefore caused

minimal interference to the layout of the

interior of the building or to the treatment of

the exterior. The stair could, of course, have

been positioned anywhere in the plan.

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classicism by Romanticism in the early

nineteenth century.

Le Corbusier, who was for a time a pupil of

Perret, was another early pioneer of the archi-

tectural use of reinforced concrete. His enthu-

siasm for the material was, to some extent, a

Fig. 4.5 This drawing depicts the structural carcass of Le

Corbusier's Domino house of 1914 and demonstrates that

he had a complete, probably intuitive, understanding of

the structural potential of the material. The renowned 'five

points', which were to have such a profound influence on

the architecture of the twentieth century, were developed

from this.