ABSTRACT
The history of nomad and urban tents dispels any impression that tensile architecture is a modern innovation. Modern tensile technology was created in response to the requirements of constructing long span suspension bridges and it was this existing technology that shaped the opening phase of modern tensile architecture. The unsuspected similarity in the shapes of some black tents and modern prestressed tensile surface structures is evidence of the existence of a 'tensile aesthetic'. The value of a survey of traditional tents lies in its demonstration of the intrinsic character of tensile architecture. The tensile aesthetic is typified by complex anticlastically curved surfaces, flat sweeping profiles, dominant hovering roofs and the suppression of walls. The construction of marvellous tensile pavilions in the second halt of the 20th century is hardly unique. The extraordinary extent and effectiveness of nomad tents demonstrates the flexibility of tensile architecture.
