The Arcades Project - Operi

'The complicated construction (out of iron and copper) of the Corn Exchange in
1811 was the work of the architect Bellange and the engineer Brunet. It is the first
time, to our knowledge, that architect and engineer are no longer united in one
person . . . . Hittorff, the builder of the Gare du Nord, got his insight into iron
construction from Bellallge.-Naturally, it is a matter more of an application of
iron than a construction in iron. Techniques of wood construction were simply
transposed to iron." Sigfried Giedion, Bauen in Frankreich, p. 20. [F2,6]
Apropos of Veugny's covered market built in 1824 near the Madeleine: "The slenderness
of the delicate cast-iron columns brings to mind Pompeian wall paintings.
The construction, in iron and cast iron, of the new market near the Madeleine is
one of the most graceful achievements in this genre. One cannot imagine anything
more elegant or in better taste . . . . ' Eck, Traite. '" Sigfried Giedion, Bauen in
Frankreich, p. 21. [F2,7]
"The most important step toward industrialization: mechanical prefabrication of
specific forms (sections) out of wrought iron or steel. The fields interpenetrate: . ..
in 1832, railroad workers began not with building components but with rails. Here
is the point of departure for sectional iron, which is the basis of iron construction.
[Note to this passage: The new methods of construction penetrate slowly into
industry. Double-T iron was used in flooring for the first time in Paris in 1845.
when the masons were out on strike and the price of wood had risen due to increased
construction and larger spans. r Giedion. Bauen in Frankreich, p. 26.
[F2,8]
The first structures made of iron served transitory purposes: covered markets,
railroad stations, exhibitions. Iron is thus immediately allied with functional
moments in the life of the economy. What was once functional and transitory,
however, begins today, at an altered tempo, to seem formal and stable. [F2,9]
"Les Hanes consist of two groups of pavilions joined to each other by covered
lanes. It is a somewhat timid iron structure that avoids the generous spans of
Horeau and Flachat and obviously keeps to the model of the greenhouse."
Giedion, Bauen in Frankreich, p. 28. [F2a,1]
On the Gare du Nord: Here they have entirely avoided that ahundance of space
which is found in waiting rooms, entryways, and restaurants around 1880, and
which led to the prohlem of the railroad station as exaggerated baroque palace.??
Giedion, Rauen in Frankl'eich, p. 31. [F2a,2]
"Wherever the nineteenth century feels itself to be unobserved, it grows bold:'
Giedion, Bauen in Fran/midI, p. 33. In fact, this sentence holds good in the
general form that it has here: the anonymous art of the illustrations in family
magazines and children's books, for example, is proof of the point. [F2a,3]