Industrial Revolution Architecture

Arch Bailasan Maqboul

The Industrial Revolution
1760-1820/1840
Part 1
Four Industrial Revolutions
The Population Explosion

○Famine
○War
○Disease
○Stricter quarantine
measures
○The elimination of the
black rat
The Industrial Revolution (1760-1820/1840)

▪ The Industrial Revolution refers to the greatly increased output of machine made
goods that began in England in the 1700s

▪ Major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and

technology had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of
the times.
What was the Industrial Revolution?

▪ A period from 18th to 19th

century, began in the United
Kingdom then spread
throughout Europe, North
America, and eventually the
world.

▪ Lead the transition of shifting

production from hand
methods to machines.
What was the Industrial Revolution?

• Machines were invented

which replaced human
labor
• New energy sources
were developed to power
the new machinery –
water, steam, electricity,
oil (gas, kerosene)

• Increased use of metals

and minerals Aluminum,
coal, copper, iron, etc.
The Industrial Revolution took place in England
between 1760 and 1830.

• Moving from hand production methods to

machines
• New chemical manufacturing and iron
production processes
• Increasing use of steam power
• Development of machine tools and the rise of
the factory system

Led to Radical changes at every level of

civilization throughout the world
Britain Takes the Lead

Why? • Trade power

• Colonies
• Government support for
transportation improvements

Great Britain’s advantages:

• Plentiful iron and coal
• A navigable river system
• Colonies that supplied raw materials
and bought finished goods
• A government that encouraged
improvements in transportation and
used its navy to protect British trade
The Industrial revolution spread from England to
Europe, Creating a new type of worker; the wage
laborer or proletariat who earns a hard living in
numerous factories.
This Era Witnessed New Inventions:

The Steam Engine: Invented by James

Watt in 1785.

The Railway: A meaningful symbol of

the new age which in turn had
consequences for architecture, How?

The Steam Boat: An important means

of transportation which in turn had
consequences for mass migration
across the globe. The possibility of
travel brought about the migration of
the population from the countryside to
big cities.
 The impact of the Industrial Revolution

- Transportation
improved
 Ships
- Wooden ships →
Iron ships → Steel
ships
- Wind-powered sails
→ Steam-powered
boilers
 Trains
 Automobiles
- Communication improved
 Telegraph
 Telephone
 Radio
 Impact on other fields
• Scientific Revolution
• Intellectual Revolution
– Encouraged learning and the search for better and
newer ways of doing things
• Agricultural Revolution
– Landowners experimented in their enclosures
– Seed drill
– Crop rotation
– Livestock breeding
Innovation in Agriculture

Townshend’s Four-Field System

▪ The biggest impact of the Industrial Revolution on
19th-century architecture was the mass-production
of iron and later steel in quantities where it
became economically applicable as a building
material mass production
 New Materials
▪ Metals: have high tensile strength,
unlike masonry materials. There was
very little use of metals before
industrial revolution for many reasons.
▪ New construction techniques
required – large span structures,
wooden structures were highly
flammable hence were substituted by
iron/steel structures.
▪ The development of the scientific
thought ; New socio-spatial needs –
opera houses, theatres, exhibitions.
▪ Split between aesthetics, traditions
and new technologies.
Factory System
• Developed to replace the domestic system of
production
• Faster method of production
• Workers concentrated in a set location
• Production anticipated demand
More goods, less prices
Historical Significance of the Industrial Revolution

❑The Industrial Revolution changed human life

drastically

❑ More was
created in the
last 250+ years
than in the
previous 2500+
years of known
human history.
❑New technologies dramatically improved the speed of
transporting people and goods.
❑The railways enabled more freight ‫شحن‬to be transported
cheaply and quickly.

In 1700, it took four days to travel from

The first Intercity railway was built in 1830
London to Manchester, by 1870, it took
between Liverpool and Manchester.
four hours
 Benefits of the Industrial Revolution

•First government regulations; The conditions of the

Industrial Revolution encouraged governments to
pass laws on child labor and introduce the first basic
safety legislation.
•Education and health care; The terrible conditions
of the Industrial Revolution sparked moves to
provide more education and health care.
•Movement of people; Prior to the industrial
revolution, people rarely moved from the area where
they were born. The Industrial Revolution enabled
people to travel further afield.
 But…!
Problem of industrial revolution
 Child Labor

Child Labor: Many children worked long hours for very low pay. They
were also susceptible to maimed limbs, poor health and early death.
 Environmental Harm

Pollution was a major problem in the industrial revolution, caused by

burning coal, high population density and no regulations on factories.
The West Midlands

• The West Midlands is

a metropolitan
county and
combined authority
area in western-
central England )

• Known as the ‘Black

Country’ because of
its landscape of dark
foundries, furnaces,
and smoky
atmosphere.
Horrible Living Conditions for Workers

Average life expectancy in 1837 was in the high 30s. But, it was
lower for those working in factories.
• Higher
concentration of
workers in new mill
towns led poor
sanitation and
outbreaks of
infectious diseases,
such as cholera.
• The slave trade. In
the early part of the
Industrial
Revolution, some
industries, such as
cotton were still
dependent on the
slave trade.
What about architecture?
To be continued

Thanks
Industrial Revolution Architecture
Part 2

Arch Bailasan Maqboul

Architecture and Industrial
Revolution
The Industrial Revolution 1760-1820/1840
18th to the 19th century

Part 2
 The Industrial Revolution impact on
Architecture
• Enormous changes at
the level of civilization
throughout the world.
• Growth of heavy
industrial materials
brought more new
building materials
which are cast iron,
steel, and glass.
• Architects and
engineers rearranged Steel has tremendous strength to weight and allowed
the concept of engineers to design increasingly bigger, lighter, more
function, size, and form open spaces
• Appearance of urban districts of the factories and
the worker’s housing, by the deterioration of the
public taste among the freshly rich people.
• New modes of transportation, tunnels, canals,
railroads, and bridges.
• Iron-making
procedures
encouraged
the building
of bridges
and other
structures.
 From steel – cast iron – wrought iron

‫الحدید المطاوع‬Wrought Iron: Cast Iron:

Forty times as resistant to An Essentially Brittle
tension and bending to stone and Material approximately four
can be formed and molded into times as resistant to
any shape compression as stone

Glass :
can be manufactured in larger sizes and volumes
Wrought Iron ‫الحدید المطاوع‬ Cast Iron
•Used for decorative items • Heavy
•More resistant to rust than cast
• Hard
iron
•Ability to resist corrosion • Somewhat brittle
•contains less than 0.2% carbon •contains 2% – 4.0%
• Usage of strong iron framed construction called “ideal” for:

➢ large indoor open spaces factories

➢ train stations
➢ Museums
➢ Halls, Exhibitions, Pavilions
➢ Covered markets
• New decorative art designed by
architects and engineers like:
➢ iron corners
➢ ornamental bolts extending
beyond the mainline
➢ Gothic lacework of iron.
Main Examples
John Dobson's Central Station

• John Dobson's Central Station,

Newcastle Central is one of the
great monuments of the early
Railway Age
• Designed by John Dobson (1787-
1865)
Steel bowstring arches,
masonry side walls

The first of the great

arched roofs
represented a bold step
forward which was
copied by others.
Main Examples
The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace an Exhibition Center, City of Westminster, United Kingdom

Architect: Joseph Paxton - Area: 92000 m² - Year: "1851"
• The Crystal Palace created to enclose the
Great Exhibition of 1851 in England
• It was built by glass and iron
• Built by Joseph Paxton within six months
• It was reconstructed from
1852-1854

• Paxton learned how to

put glass and iron
together in large designs.

• Demonstrates spatial
beauty and is carefully
planned building
procedure

• Includes prefabricated
standard parts and the
foreshadowed industrial
building
• Maximized interior
space
• The glass cover enabled
daylight.
• Destruction by fire
30 November 1936
 Main Examples

Friedrich Hitzig

• Covered Market in
Berlin, 1865-1868
• Cast-iron columns
support the six-
aisled building with
its total surface
area of 5,300
square metres.
 Main Examples

Eiffel tower

The Eiffel Tower

was built for the
exhibition in Paris
in 1889 by
Alexandre-
Gustave Eiffel in
Paris
• It was a dramatic demonstration by the French of their
mastery of upcoming construction technology.
• Using metal in constructing the great tower from the
year 1887-1889 of Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel in Paris.
 Main Examples

London Paddington station

The National Rail station was officially

named London Paddington, in 1838
Housing during the Industrial Revolution

• Conditions varied from the

magnificence and richness
of the homes of the wealthy
to the squalor of the lives of
the workers.
• The Industrial Age saw new
homes for the rich
mimicking stately homes,
whilst those for the poor
were often dirty slum
dwellings.
• European cities go through a period of urbanization because
of the factory system
• This caused living conditions to be terrible
• Sickness was widespread (cholera)
• Average worker spent 14hours, 6days
• Dangerous industry-coal mines
• Rows of small houses built
for industrial and other
workers became a
common landscape
feature in Britain.

• Many houses were built as

back-to-backs.

• By the early Victorian

period, such houses had
become associated with
high density in industrial
towns and were strongly
condemned by
contemporaries.
 Significant betterment of public health
Sewer system in Newark, resulted from engineering improvements
England in water supply and sewerage, which were
essential to the further growth of urban
populations.
Development of cities
Cotton-polis in Manchester
• The world’s first
industrial city in
Manchester
• Responded to the
factory system in the
rising modern cities,
where large numbers
of workers migrated
into cities to search
for employment in
factories.

Know the name and the major information

about it
• With textiles as the
engine, Manchester has
become a complex
industrial city, producing
goods of all kinds.

• But the rapid

urbanization of the area
brought its
accompanying problems
of overcrowding and
poor housing.

Illustration of a cotton mill in Summerseat, Bury (1850)

• Mapping Manchester’s industrial past; Manchester was the
world’s first industrial city. Its damp climate was ideal for
processing cotton and its network of canals, rivers and
transportation systems provided the perfect conditions for new
cotton mill technology to thrive.
The growth of the industrial city “Cotton-polis”

Map 1

A plan of the towns of

Manchester & Salford in the
County Palatine of Lancaster.
Published by John Berry and
Russel Casson, 1746.

The main plan and the view of

Manchester and Salford are
depicted at the bottom of the
map: Manchester is still
enveloped by fields.
*This will change dramatically over the
next fifty years.
Map 2

At the start of the 18th

century, Manchester had a
population of fewer than
10,000. By the end of the
century, it had grown
almost tenfold, to 89,000.

Green intentionally
extended the map beyond
the boundaries of the town
center, recognizing that
rapid the expansion would
soon consume the
surrounding pastures
‫المراعي‬
Map 3

Manchester sheet 104,

surveyed 1845,
published 1848

This map shows how the

landscape has been
transformed in the fifty
years since Green’s map.
From a small market
town in the early 18th
century, Manchester was
growing at a phenomenal
rate. It’s population had
grown from less than
10,000 in the early 1700s
to 400,000 by the time
this map was published
in 1851.
Map 4
Map of 1892

The rich detail on

these maps help us to
analyse land use by
identifying buildings
such as mills,
warehouses, gas
works and types of
housing. The
proximity of factories
and railways to back
to back housing can
be seen, as well as the
distribution of public
houses, schools and
places of worship.
Thanks