METAL BUILDINGS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 January 1937, Page 2

METAL BUILDINGS

MODERN MATERIALS. SCIENCE A ARCHITECTURE. ' :;T -l All-metal buildings and greatly increased use of glass as a structural material were among many interesting developments foreshadowed by Air C. R. Ford, of Auckland, in a review of science in architecture to the engineering and architecture section. Vacuum panes, glass bricks and bullet resisting glass were among *the new products coming on the market. Perhaps the most obvious and the greatest advance in building science during recent years, and the one fraught with the most tremendous possibilities for the future, was in the field of materials, said Air Ford. Not only had existing materials been developed to new potentialities by the work of research chemists and engineers, but materials entirely new had been produced. “Most, if not all, writers upon ,architectural history in the 50 years or so preceding the present ‘modern’ movement were not practising architects; but studious laymen,” be said. “To these writers, who established the traditions of popular taste and judgment in anchiteeture for a long period, the science of architecture was largely unexplored country. It was inevitable that a whole array of considerations that enter into the sim-> plest architectural design were largely overlooked. The fundamental error was the ‘attempt to produce style from external form rather than to develop style from cause.’ Falsity in construction became a commonplace in all building.” Mr F ord emphasised the need for co-operation between architect and engineer. Analysis of stresses in a building frame and the design of members of the frame was pure engineering. It was impossible for any ordinary man in one lifetime to equip himself as both an enigneer and architect. Before full advantage could be taken of the great opportunities which science had made available, hampering restrictions and by-laws, relics of the pre-scientific era, must- be removed. Concrete and fire-resisting construction and sanitary plumbing were directions in which by-laws imposed needless restrictions in view of modern developments.