Join us with guest speaker Edwin Trout BA, Manager of Information Services from The Concrete Society as he discusses Portland Cement From Patent to Standard: Accommodating Change in Britain’s Use of building materials, 1824 to 1934.
This event is for everyone interested in conservation architecture and is part of the RIBA South Conservation Group's series of monthly events.
Ticket registration for this event opens 10 January 2025, at 9am.
About the topic
A simple glance at the buildings characteristic of either end of the period under review – 1824 to 1934 is more than sufficient to indicate great change.
In building, as in so much of European material culture, there has been a huge technological and cultural shift. What became possible in structural design and construction stemmed from the introduction of new building materials – not just their invention, but their acceptance and adoption by the construction industry and the society it serves, a change in the culture of building.
Practices at the start of the period were traditional, rooted in local materials and methods. But nineteenth-century Britain was industrialising rapidly. An urban explosion of new towns and cities, and an eclectic and derivative approach to architecture led to a ‘battle of styles’ with the use of emerging modern materials such as iron and glass. Our interest is in the case of a third material, Portland cement, first developed in the UK – its early use in concrete, and later extension into reinforced concrete under the influence of foreign examples.
Edwin will share landmarks that show how and to what extent the introduction of Portland cement changed British building practice.
