The Arcades Project - Operi

F
F
[Iron [Iron Construction]
Construction]
Each epoch dreams the one to follow.
-Michelet, ''Averill! Avenir!" (Europe, 73, p. 6)
Dialectical deduction of iron constmction: it is contrasted both with Greek construction
in stone (raftered ceiling) and with medieval medieval construction in stone
(vaulted ceiling) ceiling). . "Another art, art, in which another static principle establishes a tone
even more magnificent than that of the other two, will struggle from the womb of
time to be born born .... . . . . A new and unprecedented ceiling system, system, one that will
naturally bring in its wake a whole new realm of art forms, can ... . . . make its
appearance appearance only after some some particular particular material-formerly neglected, neglected, if not unknown,
as a basic basic principle principle in that application-begins application-begins to be accepted. accepted. Such a
material is ... . . . iron, which our century has already started to employ in this
sense. In proportion as its static properties are tested and made known, iron is
destined to serve, in the architecture of the future, as the basis for the system of
ceiling construction; and with with respect to statics, it is destined to advance tlus
system as far beyond the Hellenic and the medieval as the system of the arch
advanced the Middle Ages beyond the monolithic monolithic stone-lintel system of antiquity
. .... . . . If the static principle of force is thus borrowed from vaulted construc' construc'
tions and put to work for an entirely new and unprecedented unprecedented system, then, with
regard to the art forms of the new system, the formal principle principle of the Hellenic Hellenic
mode must find acceptance." ;:,um hundertjiihrigen Geburtstag Karl Boettichers
(Berlin, 1906), 1906), pp. 42, 44-46. (The principle of Hellenic architecture and Ger·
manic architecture as carried over into the architecture of our time.) [Fl,l]
manic architecture as carried over into the architecture of our time.) [Fl,l]
Glass before its time, premature iron. In the arcades, both the most brittle and the
strongest materials suffered breakage; in a certain sense, they they were deflowered.
Around the middle of the past century, it was not yet known how to build with
glass and iron. Hence, Hence, the light that fell from above, through the panes panes between
the iron supports, was dirty and sad. [Fl,2]
the iron supports, was dirty and sad. [Fl,2]
"The mid-1830s see the appearance of the first iron furniture, in the form of
bedsteads, chairs, small tables, jardinieres; and it is highly characteristic of the
epoch epoch that this furniture was was preferred because it could be made to imitate pcr-