INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

[PRODUCTION OF NEW MATERIALS]

• The Industrial Revolution marks the production of
new building materials due to invention of new
mechanical strategies.
• Prior to this, architecture revolved around the revival
of Gothic and Renaissance building style.

FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR PRODUCTION OF NEW

BUILDING MATERIALS
• Production of mechanical assistance through new
adopted strategies.
• Economic growth contributed towards the ease in
production of machineries.
• Use of affordable raw materials as substitution.
• Following building materials were highly produced during industrial revolution
IRON AND STEEL
CONCRETE
GLASS
• These materials were not alien but their production on building level was not affordable.
• Due to less production, they were not economically sound.
• By availability of mechanical assistance, production boomed.
PRODUCTION OF IRON
• Earlier, Iron was smelted by charcoal (usually Cast Iron which
was brittle)
• Another factor limiting iron industry was the scarcity of
water power to power blast furnaces.
• All these limitations were accompanied by lack of economy.

But after Industrial Revolution,

• Iron ores were started to smelted by Coke(Coal) rather than
Charcoal(Wood) which lowered the cost of production which
enabled construction of bigger furnaces.
• The invention of steam engine helped as a substitute for
water engine.
• Still, the production of Wrought Iron was difficult because of
unavailability of good iron ores in Britain.
INVENTIONS AND IRON
• In 1709, Abraham Darby became the first to smelt iron using coke. However, the coke pig
iron was not suitable for making wrought iron.
• In 1750, a steam engine was used for the first time in blast furnaces.
• All these steps were able to initiate iron industry at bigger scale but still unable to
manufacture wrought iron.
• It was in 1783, when Henry Cort introduced his Puddling technique which enable removing
impurities from the iron to make wrought iron.

THE PUDDLING PROCESS

• Puddling was a means of decarburizing molten pig iron by
slow oxidation in a reverberatory furnace by manually
stirring it with a long rod. The decarburized iron, having a
higher melting point than cast iron.
• This technique disabled direct contact of smelted ore from
the fuel(coke) which prevented the ore from impurities.
FROM IRON TO STEEL
• In 1856, Henry Bessemer introduced a process of producing
steel from molten pig iron.
• He conducted a series of classic experiments for burning off
the carbon in the iron by trying various designs of furnace.
• At one point in his work, he noticed that he didn’t need to USE OF IRON-STEEL IN RAILWAY TRACKS
heat fuel to the charge of molten iron when trying to make
steel, the 4% carbon present in the cast iron would burn, and
produce heat, keeping the metal hot and fluid and reducing
the carbon content as well. (Bessemer’s process)

All these achievements flourished the iron and steel industry

(almost quadrupling it within two decades)
PRODUCTION OF CONCRETE
• In 1824 Joseph Aspdin, experimented with heating limestone
and clay until the mixture calcined, grinding it and then
mixing it with water and named it Portland Cement.
• The Portland cement was then manufactured through
different methods to make it a more durable.
• Finally, in 1845, Isaac Johnson produced the first modern
Portland cement by mixing clay and chalk and firing the
mixture at extremely high temperatures. The high heat
produced fine quality cement like the one used today.
• The later was then mixed with gravel and water to form a
superior building material called Concrete.
PRODUCTION OF GLASS
• Production of glass was already existed before industrial
revolution but it had its own limitation.
• The former method didn’t allow manufacture of large glass
panes.
• Then, in 1832, the Chance brothers introduced a new
method(Cylinder Glass process) of glassmaking which
enabled manufacture of larger panes without any
interruption.
• In the cylinder glass process, the glassblower gets a gob of
molten glass on the end of his blow pipe. Then, the glass is
blown into a long shape that slowly turned into a large
cylinder.
• The workers stood on a high vertical platform and blew the
glass into a deep trench. This allowed them to create the
cylinders which were ideally at least around one foot
across in diameter and five feet long.
 USE OF NEW
BUILDING MATERIALS
IN CONSTRUCTION
 IRON ARCHITECTURE

BRIDGES RAIL ROAD AND STATIONS MARKET PLACES

COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS CULTURAL BUILDINGS EXHIBITIONS
CRYSTAL PALACE, London
• Built in 1854, the structure consisted of
right-angled triangles, which were
supported by iron beams and pillars.
• Designed by Architect Sir Joseph
Paxton, it was one of his finest
combination of glass and iron.
• This Great Exhibition building was
1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an
interior height of 128 feet (39 m).
• It foreshadowed industrialized building
and the widespread use of cast iron
and steel. It was one of the great
buildings of Industrial period, which
represent revolutionized architecture.
EIFFEL TOWER, Paris
• It was built in 1889 as a symbol of France’s industrial
power to the world.
• Named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, the tower
is 324m tall and its square base measures 125m on
each side.
• The wrought-iron structure is composed of four
immense arched legs, set on masonry piers that
curve inward until joining in a single, tapered tower.
• The tower was made by 7,300 tons of wrought
iron to demonstrate that the metal could be as
strong as stone while being lighter.
• The Eiffel Tower is unquestionably modern in its
shape, which is distinct from the styles that were
popular at that time but its material truly made it
stand out.