The impact of iron load bearing structures in architecture

Marius Hârţa1, Victor Gioncu†

1
Str. Telegrafului, bl.D6, ap.7, Timişoara, 300125, România, mariusharta@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the importance that the development
of load bearing structures can have in the development of architecture and construction and to identify
solutions for a positive harnessing of the potential of load bearing structures.
As the study reflects, iron load bearing structures have liberated architecture from load bearing constraints,
being in fact the primary engines in the development of architecture and building construction. However, the
erection speeds facilitated by these new load bearing structures and by the industrialization, the demand to
rapidly satisfy the pressing utilitarian requirements of the new industrial society, as well as the short-
sightedness of the architects, has led, in most cases, to a gradual deterioration of the built environment. In
this context, the solution to capitalize on the potential opened by iron structures, in order to improve the
quality of the built environment, was to equally take into account the technical, economic, social and cultural
needs.
The conclusions point out that only interdisciplinary collaboration and maximum openness in the design
process are able to best harness the potential of the load bearing structures in favor of a better built
environment, much more adapted to the complex human needs.

1 IRON AS LOAD BEARING MATERIAL IN
ARCHITECTURE
1.1 Iron as auxiliary load bearing material
Upon historical analysis, the use of iron as a load
bearing material can be traced back to ancient times
(Fletcher, 1896). Up to the 18th-19th century, this
use was limited to an auxiliary role, insignificant in
determining the building forms. Its participation as
load bearing material could be, at most, intuited in
changes of proportions and exceeding of the usual
limit of the spans. Notable changes will come only
with the industrialization of the production processes
and, implicitly, the availability of large amounts of
ferrous materials on the building material market.
1.2 Iron as independent load bearing material
The end of the 18th century marks the emergence of
the first buildings that, counting on independent iron
load bearing components, and even on global iron
load bearing systems, materialize novel spatial and
formal realities (Hitchcock, 1958). Such spaces and
forms appear rather as a consequence of
pragmatically solving the functional requirements
raised by the industrial and commercial buildings
(Mignot, 1983). The design of such buildings, based
on intuition and experiment (Mainstone, 1975), was
most often assumed by engineers, by specialists, by
the ones that controlled the means and reasons of the
new construction system. The historical styles that
marked the architecture of the time continued in
overwhelming majority the rules of the formal
language established by the masonry constructions,
architects not being interested in exploring the
potential of the new material. Remarkable examples
of exploiting and exposing of iron load bearing
structures in architecture remain very rare. As
exceptional synthesis between rational and sensorial
thinking, these examples are based on the intuition,
understanding and desire of capitalizing equally on
the load bearing and expressive potential of iron
(Harta, 2011). Quantitatively insignificant
exceptions, the merit of such examples resides in
creating a precedent. Thus, by the middle of the
19th century we can at most discern a parallel
existence and development between iron structures
and architecture. Significant gestures trying to
harness the possibilities of iron load bearing
structures into a spatial-formal language will be
observable only some decades later.
1.3 Repositioning of architecture toward
structure
With the consolidation of the utilitarian, iron based,
building systems, architecture changes its position
toward the load bearing structure. At the end of the
19th century, first consistent attempts to establish
expressive solutions that harness the potential of the
new material are to be witnessed. They are to be
seen mainly in commercial buildings, where, beyond
the utilitarian requirements, the need for
representation plays an increasingly important role,
as made evident in the examples of the Chicago
School (Condit, 1952). Given the primacy that the
load bearing structure had in materializing the
Skyscraper, the new building typology that
characterizes the Chicago School, it is only normal
that the iron framing devised by the engineer
imposes its logic on the spatial and functional
system. The attention of the architect would thus
concentrate on harnessing its potential, respectively
on treating the surface of the enclosing elements.
The exceptional buildings of the Chicago School
could be considered the result of the successful
collaboration between engineers and architects. In
Europe, the attempt to give style to the iron load
bearing structures has materialized in an ornamental
language adapted to the features of the new material.
In some of the most relevant examples designed by
architect Victor Horta, we can observe the highly
decorated iron load bearing frames, wrapped in more
or less sculptural masonry work, allowing great
freedom to the interior space (Giedion, 1941).
Such repositioning movements will gain
consistence with the beginning of the 20th century
and the actual birth of the modern architecture
(Frampton, 1980; Curtis, 1982). By using the
skeletal load bearing system, most often realized in
reinforced concrete, but still counting on the
principles of the iron frame, modern architecture
seems to discover the true potential of iron load
bearing structures in the freedom offered to the
space defining elements. The mean to harness this
potential was focusing the creative energy on the
form of the envelopment and of the partitioning
elements, on the relation between these elements and
the load bearing skeleton, on the form of load
bearing and constructive details, where such details
would be exposed.
Beginning with the second half of the 20th
century, modern, postmodern and contemporary
architecture take full advantage of the technological
and scientific quantum leaps, practically dispelling
the imaginable limits of the spatial-formal language
(Jencks, 2002; Puglisi, 2008). No matter if we are
talking about design, industrial production or
industrialized building process, the architectural
solutions adopted, apparently against any reason,
provide a continuous challenge, fully sustaining the
evolution of science and technology.
2 CHARACTERISTICS OF IRON LOAD
BEARING STRUCTURES
The characteristics which can be regarded as
defining for the iron load bearing structures,
characteristics derived primarily from the properties
of the material, are: reticulated form, load bearing
efficiency, the capacity to resist the most diverse
loads (tension, compression, bending and share) at
both the level of element and jointing (Blanc, 1993;
Eggen, 1995; Schulitz, 1999). These are the
characteristics that make possible the novel
constructions, of a remarkable transparency, that can
equally span huge distances and sustain heights and
forms previously unimaginable. If the superior
properties of resistance to compression, tension and,
implicitly, bending, malleability or incombustibility,
are the ones that imposed cast iron, wrought iron and
later steel, in much of the cases, as the unique
possible solution, they have also determined global
and local load bearing forms that could be
considered specific. The intentionally, more or less
altered, appropriation of this forms have led to
constructions that reveal spatial-formal realities
extremely different from the ones present in the
constructions erected with classical materials.
However, as Dooley remarks, “material adapted
structural forms” depend on much more than
structural behavior (2004).
3 CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;
THE ROLE OF THEORY
3.1 Role of architectural and structural theory
Beyond structural concerns, decisions in the domain
of building construction were, and still are,
influenced by a number of factors among which the
socio-cultural ones have a very important weight
(Kruft, 1985; Evers, 2003). After all, influenced or
not by the technical-economic factors, they are the
ones that impose edification. Beyond satisfying the
inherent needs, the solutions provided, have to take
into account every consequence that the new edifice
could have on the individual, on the society, and the
built and natural environment. Thus, the decision in
the domain of form and space must be argued
primarily in relation to the value systems of the
society that will be affected. Here intervenes
probably the most important role of the theory in the
domain of architecture, the one of a mediator
between value systems and formal-spatial solutions.
Not less important are the available means, crucial
for the necessary building to become reality. The
role of structural theory, beyond that side of
feasibility which depends on the economic factor, on
the economic strength of the society concerned, to
which it is compelled to relate, is to assure the
constructive feasibility of the edifice (Kurrer, 2008).
3.2 Constraints on structural forms
Precisely the diversity of the issues which has to be
taken into account, when decisions concerning the
form of a construction are made, explains the high
level at which that form that could be considered
ideal by the science of the structural engineering is
altered. In case of constructions whose size and
functionality essentially depend on the load bearing
components, there are high chances that the shape,
resulted from the optimization of the load bearing
structure, receives a reference role in defining the
architectural form. As this dependence decreases,
either due to the size and use of the building, or due
to the evolution of science and technology, in the
search for those solutions that optimally answer the
human needs, any referencing to predefined
structural solutions that can limit the conceptual
thought can programmatically be avoided. In these
latter cases, the socio-cultural component becomes
an essential mediator of the impact of the load
bearing structures in architecture.
Emphasizing the role of the cultural factors, the
examples offered by the modern and contemporary
architecture highlight the strength with which the
determinants, acting outside the economic and
functional sphere, are modeling the image of the
building and, implicitly, are constraining the load
bearing form. A reality that can be observed in the
most diverse approaches, from the
monumentalization of the glorious moment of the
steel profiles, characteristic for Mies van der Rohe,
to the intentional detachment from any load bearing
structural constrains, specific to Frank Gehry and
Free Form Architecture. The diversity of such
examples certifies the huge spatial-formal freedom
that became possible in architecture as the potential
of the metal load bearing structures has been
harnessed. What links these examples, what
represents their common denominator, is precisely
their dependence on the features specific par
excellence to metal load bearing structures.
4 IMPACT OF IRON LOAD BEARING
STRUCTURES
4.1 Freedom of architectural form
Among the important buildings that use metal load
bearing structures, especially those that exhibit this
use, the number of those in which the architectural
creation counts on forms, altered or not, resulted
from purely exploiting the load bearing features of
the metal, is predominant. Thus appears the
tendency to associate, or even equate, the modern
architecture using metal load bearing structure with
the functional image of the industrial structures. Just
looking beyond this appearance, one can observe the
whole picture: the major impact of iron load bearing
structures, the one that marked both modern and
contemporary architecture, is not found in
predefined images, in formal constraints or
determinations, but exactly in the freedom offered to
architecture. As the stages of utilitarian takeover or
negation of the iron load bearing structures in
architecture, specific to the mid-19th century have
been overcome, gestures of hiding, expressing or
even ignoring them have been transformed in
deliberated gestures. Where iron load bearing
structures are present, the search for conceptual
schemes and appropriate architectural languages
require, beyond appropriating the spaces and forms
made possible by the use of iron load bearing
structures, the awareness of, and in the same time
capitalization of the freedoms offered by the skeletal
load bearing system. This freedom from the old
load bearing constrains, indisputable consequence of
the skeletal load bearing system developed in
relationship with the iron load bearing structures,
represents the essential change, the very conceptual
basis of the new architecture: “Modern architecture
is the architecture of freedom, with a backbone of
steel.” (Norberg-Schulz in Eggen, 1995). Thus iron
load bearing structure do not determines and do not
constrains, it offers options, it is, and continues to
be, a perpetual catalyst of innovation, of everything
that means uninhibited development in the domain
of space and form.
4.2 Trigger of changes in architecture
Changes in architecture were, and still are, the result
of a complex of factors whose importance is hard to
be quantitatively estimated. Within this factors the
load bearing structure stands out, its weight as the
primary means of edification being hard to
overestimate. But appropriating the iron load
bearing structure in architecture meant exactly the
fundamental change of this primary means of
edification. From here comes both the force to
trigger and produce significant changes as well as
the one to inspire the spatial-formal creation. Thus,
it can be noted that iron load-bearing structure was
pivotal in both triggering the changes in architecture
and playing the muse for new architectural
languages.
5 KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVE
TAKEOVER
5.1 Inertia of representative buildings
As we have noted during the study, the emergence
of iron load bearing structures did not result in
immediate changes in architecture. Within the wave
of innovation triggered by the industrial revolution,
the huge inertia characteristic for the esthetic
dogmatism of the time, manifesting itself
particularly in the case of representative buildings,
will prevent the creative appropriation of iron load
bearing structures in constructions of prestige for
more than half a century. It took many years of
experience in the utilitarian domain, treatises of
architecture to put in discussion the theoretical
fundamentals themselves (Harta, 2013), important
social changes and even a certain detachment from
the academic centers, for a change of attitude toward
the iron load bearing structure to become possible.
The creative appropriation that stays at the basis of
the nonchalant use of the metal load bearing
structures in modern and contemporary architecture
is the result of a process, began more than 200 years
ago, equally marked by socio-cultural and technico-
economic factors (Giedion, 1941).
5.2 Stages of changes in architecture
Triggered as a result of the availability of the ferrous
materials, provided in increasing amounts by the
new iron industry, this process has at its starting
point the imitative use in which the metal replaced
wood or stone (Mainstone, 1975; Dooley, 2004).
The constructions realized this way have highlighted
both, the potential of the material and the issues that
this kind of approach implies, issues that derive
precisely from the imitative, simplistic treatment
which does not take into account all the relevant
factors.
The failures in the domain of the load bearing
structures, caused mainly by the poor understanding
of the strength and behavior of the material under
stress, stood at the basis of the development of
structural engineering (Mainstone, 1975). The
intuition of the unexploited potential of the new
material fully motivated the researching efforts. The
desire to reduce the number of failures determined
the rise and consolidation of the Theory of
Structures (Mainstone, 1975; Addis, 2007; Kurrer,
2008).
If in the domain of the load bearing structures the
failures have generated progress, not the same can
be said of the field of architecture. In architecture,
an already established domain, with consolidated
value systems and normative languages, the failures
led, in first instance to a vocal refusal, materialized
both in critical writings and in rejecting the
exposure, or even the use, of metal load bearing
structures in prestige buildings (Kruft, 1985; Evers,
2003). Seen from the perspective of the
establishment of architecture, this refusal was a
consequence of the unacceptable socio-cultural
transformations associated with the production
means of iron as well as the lack of any acceptable
normative language or esthetic legitimacy in the
work of the overwhelming majority of the pioneers
of iron building.
Stimulated by immediate needs coming from the
industrial and commercial zone, less concerned with
the established value systems, outside the domain of
prestige buildings, structural engineering constantly
progressed, setting new norms of reference while
permanently increasing the potential of iron
structures at both a functional as well as on an
expressive level. A deeper understanding of the
types of stresses and the behavior of the ferrous
material under those stresses, and the progress
recorded at the level of structural form that
consciously exploit the properties of the material,
were closely followed by important progresses at the
level of production and processing technology. The
iron industry has permanently tried to adapt, in order
to best solve the requirements of load bearing
structures. Unfortunately, if we consider the overall
quality of the built environment, we cannot speak
about the same progress.
With the increasing potential of the new material,
the expansion of industry and trade, but especially
the increasing number of buildings deprived of any
aesthetic means of control, architecture, through few
representatives (Labrouste, Le Duc), which showed
openness to both social-cultural actuality and new
means of construction, became aware of the fact that
the new reality, the chaotic development associated
with it, is imminent, unstoppable and that, if
architecture desires to become useful, to play a role,
to involve in adapting this reality to the needs of
human, has to accept it. Only the acceptance of this
reality, of the needs imposed by this reality, made
architects aware of the incapacity of the old
constructive systems to offer solutions, highlighting
the potential of the ones based on iron load bearing
structures to do it. In order to creatively appropriate
the potential of the iron load bearing structures, to
adapt them to the human needs, given the obvious
contradiction that appears between the forms
resulted from the pragmatically use of the building
system and the accepted value systems, a
reevaluation of the latter, and implicitly of the
established normative languages, was necessary.
This reevaluation has been consumed in long years
of debates and justifications in which, beyond the
doctrinaire fundamentals, the very idea of the
construction at a conceptual level has been
questioned (Kruft, 1985; Evers, 2003). The few
materialized examples and the theoretical reflections
of this first stage, that can be called functional, are
the ones that formed the basis of the new approach.
The knowledge and the creative interpretation of this
disparate information, whose recomposing was
possible due to the information disseminated by text
and printed image, was essential for opening the
later creative appropriation.
The second stage, of research, is marked by the
first trials of a relevant consistence, which have
settled the skeletal load bearing system and
highlighted the possible independence of the space
defining elements from the load bearing system. We
talk about the Chicago School of Architecture,
which took into account, through the representatives
of both domains, equally the evolutions in
engineering and architecture. The motivation of the
collaborative approach was given equally from the
necessity to solve novel functional requirements,
which have imposed the new building typology of
the Skyscraper, and the awareness of the need to
adapt the built environment to the aspirations of the
human (Condit, 1952). The alternative direction of
research, materialized in Europe in the Art-Noveau
style, in which the influence of the theories and
buildings from the former period are also obvious
(Giedion, 1941), was motivated precisely by the
desire to exploit the expressive potential of the iron
load bearing structure, which received here a
symbolic value.
In the third stage, the creative one, by adopting
the skeletal building system, modern architecture,
consecrates the freedom of the space defining
elements from the load bearing structure.
5.3 Tasks assumed by engineering and
architecture
Synthesizing the tasks assumed by engineering and
architecture in the process of appropriating and
harnessing the potential of iron load bearing
structures, we can note that: the role of the engineer,
as representative of the technical-economic field,
was to exploit to the maximum the potential of the
new material, to find adapted load bearing structural
forms, and tools to anticipate their behavior, to
establish the norms of reference so necessary for
those that decide to exploit this potential; the role of
the architect, as representative of the socio-cultural
field, was to identify the needs to which the new
load bearing structures can be best adapted, to select
the best suited structural forms and to adapt them to
the whole complex of needs, to outline solutions that
fully take into account the new possibilities and to
formulate normative grammars to order adequate
formal languages; the role of the relation, as
revealed by the multiple successful collaborations
(Margolius, 2002; Popovic-Larsen, 2008;), was to
facilitate a comprehensive approach that would
allow a better handling of the more and more
complex issues raised by the building industry.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Our study reveals that: the most important
consequence of the impact of iron load bearing
structures was the liberation of architecture from
load bearing constraints. Harnessing the great
freedom only became possible as architecture
opened itself to the new opportunities, following a
long term process. It was also pointed out that: to
provide plausible answers, that could be considered
acceptable by the social-cultural environment, the
components of the built environment should take
into account the needs of humans in all their
complexity, social-cultural and technical-economic
factors being equally important in establishing
benchmarks. Summarizing, it can be said that: the
true potential of the development of load bearing
structures resides in its capacity to increasingly give
better answers to more and more complex human
needs. In conclusion:
- capitalizing on the opportunities offered by the
development of load bearing structures in order to
rise the quality of the built environment imposes
solutions that take into account the needs of humans
in all their complexity; for this goal to be achieved,
these needs should determine, above all, the
acceptable limits for every new component of the
built environment
- to meet such requirements, in the context of the
increasing awareness of the infinite number of
problems risen by the adaptation of the built
environment to the complex needs of humans,
collaborative design becomes imperative;
- to avoid unwanted conservative attitudes that
could block the progress, the design process should
be kept intentionally open, programmatically
encouraging the rise of solutions that optimally
exploit new potentialities.
Starting from the previously stated ideas:
acceptable limits, collaborative approach and
maximum openness, an alternative design process
can be suggested. Aiming to keep the maximum
openness, such a process should primarily avoid
imposing, trough rigid, or even idiosyncratic,
conceptual formulas any final solutions. Therefore,
the answer finding process should primarily consist
in a succession of stages of interdisciplinary
collaboration through which, stage by stage, as little
restrictive as possible, the unacceptable options
would be gradually eliminated. This way, the most
reasonable outline of the acceptable limits could be
defined. Such an outline would have the role to
focus both, the creative energy of the designers and
the huge potentialities of the new developments, in a
direction in which it is most plausible that a solution
that optimally satisfies, in all their complexity, those
needs involved with the required construction, can
be successfully developed.
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