ABSTRACT
Architects had beco me dependent on t he skills of engineers during the early twentieth century following the introduction of the new technologies of steel and reinforced concr ete. Previously, when using the traditional materials of masonry and timber, which builders fully understood, architects had been able to rely upon the builders to realise their designs. Once steel and rei nforced concrete technolog y became available – both of which were extr emely seductive to a rchitects because one of t he key features of the Modernism of the first half of the twentieth century was that it should be celebrative of tec hnology – the assistance of the engineering pr ofession became essential because the new structural technologies were not adequately u nderstood by builders. In the context of architecture, a new profession consequently came into being in the first half of the twentieth century , that of the consulting structural engineer. The structural engineering profession had, of course, existed long before this – the British Institution of Civil Engineers, for example, was founded in 1818 – b ut it had not been greatly involved w ith architecture. In the nineteenth century the engineers were concerned with building infrastructure such as canals, roads and railways, and if they did become involved with buildings it was usually in the context of industrial structures such as mills and warehouses which, in th e nineteenth century , were far removed from the context of the architecture of the day. At that time ar chitects and engine ers largely inhabited different worlds. This situation changed during the twentieth century as a result of two developments. The first of these was that the new technol ogies of steel and reinforced concrete made their appearance, as mentioned above. The second, and related, development was that architects, following a period of widesp read disregard of buil ding technol ogy which had p erhaps lasted for a thousand years – since the building of th e mediaeval cathedr als – once again becam e interested in th e possibilities of the aesthetic expression of structure.
