ABSTRACT
When indigenous, vernacular or traditional buildings were, or are built, it is likely that those involved see the project as a conceptual whole; there is no perception of a separate structural concept. The main restriction on built form imposed by the available materials before industrialization was the dimensional limitation of spanning structures. For structures and the built form, the arrival of affordable iron and the new demands of industry changed everything. By the end of the 19th century, calculation procedures had been established for many common forms of skeletal structure. These were applied routinely by engineers to obtain numerical predictions that provided the required dimensional structural information. The work of the Modern Movement, from the point of view of technology and the use of structure, reveals a puzzling situation. A basic idea of the Modern Movement was to introduce modern technology and materials into buildings to provide better environments and more durable buildings built faster and at a lower cost.
