Of all building materials and their respective histories in culture and material science, concrete is perhaps one the more confounding. Shaped and transformed like a plastic or molten metal, concrete embodies a catalytic geology, fossilizing inertia, gravity, weight, longevity, and time. The consequence, a poetic manifestation of pervasive use, from the banal and utilitarian to the monumental and spectacular — a binding mortar in masonry and ceramics, a structural frame of columns, foundations, and floor slabs, a facade of precast panels or béton brut, an infrastructure of roads, tunnels, bridges, and dams. What timber is to the primitive hut, the post and lintel, concrete is to both utility and monumentality, the arch, dome, and vault; with application and performance as versatile as the human imagination. Continue reading
