Structural Design for Architecture
106Fig. 4.9 Penguin Pool, London Zoo, London, England,- Berthold Lubetkin and Tecton, architects; Ove Arup,
structural engineer. The expressive possibilities of continu-
ous structures of reinforced concrete are most eloquently
demonstrated here. [Photo: E. & F. McLachlan]
all of the buildings some parts of the structure
were visible; in some buildings the structure in
its entirety was visible. This option was made
technically possible by the fire-resisting
properties of concrete and also by its durabil-
ity, and was an important aspect of the visual
quality of the buildings. In addition to the fact
of its exposure, the tactile nature of the
exposed structure was eminently suited to the
expression of the Modernist ideals of the
'honest' portrayal of the constituents of a
building. Similar developments were occurring
simultaneously in steel-framed buildings, as
was shown in Chapter 3, but the architectural
language of reinforced concrete was subtly
different from that of steel, due mainly to its
different structural properties, to the fact that
it could be left exposed in the finished build-
ing and to the quite different ways in which
steel and reinforced concrete buildings were
constructed. Concrete therefore made a
distinct contribution to the developing
language of early architectural Modernism.
In his buildings of the 1940s and 1950s, Le
Corbusier introduced a new element into the
vocabulary of reinforced concrete. This was
board-marked exposed concrete ('beton brut')^4
All concrete does, of course, bear the marks of
its formwork, but in the case of beton brut the
4 Exposed concrete which bears the marks of the
formwork in which it was cast (literally 'rough', 'raw',
'unfashioned', 'unadulterated').