The Arcades Project - Operi

marked the triumph of exposed ironwork . .. ; at the exhibition of' 1900, nearly all
the iron frames were covered with plasterwork. L'Encyclopedie fraru;aise, vol.
16, 16-68, pp. 6-7 (Auguste Perret, "Les Besoins collectifs et l'architecture").
(F8,4]
The " triumph of exposed ironwork" in the age of the genre: " It may be . .. the . ..
enthusiasm for machine technology and the faith in the superior durability of its
materials that explains why the attribute 'iron' is used . .. whenever ... power
and necessity are supposed to be manifest. Iron are the laws of nature, and iron is
the 'stride of the worker battalion'; the . .. union of the German empire is supposedly
made of iron, and so is ... the chancellor himself." Dolf Sternherger, Pano­
ram" (Hamhurg, 1938), p. 31. (F8,5]
The iron halcony. '''In its most rigorous form, the house has a uniform faade . ...
Articulation results only from doors and windows. In France, the window is,
without exception, even in the poorest house, a porte-jenfJtre, a 'French window'
opening to the floor . ... This makes a railing necessary; in the poorer houses it is
a plain iron hal', hut in the wealthier houses it is of' wrought iron . ... At a certain
stage, the railing hecomes an ornament. . .. It further contributes to the articulation
of the fac;ade by . .. accenting the lower line of the window. And it fulfIlls both
funetions without hreaking the plane of the faade. For the great architectural
mass of the modern house, with its insistent lateral extension, this articulation
could not possihly suffice. The architeets' building-sense demanded that the ever
stronger horizontal tendency of the house . .. he given expression . ... And they
diseovered the means for this in the traditional iron grille. Across the entire length
of the building front, on one or two stories, they set a balcony provided with an
iron grat.ing of this type, which, being black, stands out very distinctly and makes
a vigorous impression. 'J,'hese halconies, . .. up to the most recent period of building,
were kept. very narrow; and if through them the severity of the surface is
overcome, what can he called the relief of the fac;ade remains nonetheless quite
nat., overcoming t.he effect of' the wall as little as does the sculpt.ed ornamentation,
likewise kept flat. In t.he case of adjoining houses ? these balcony railings fuse with
one anot.her and consolidate the impression of a walled street; and this effect is
heightened hy the fact that? wherever the upper stories are used for commercial
purposes, the proprietors put up ... not signboards hut matched gilded letters in
roman style? which, when well spaced across the ironwork, appeal' purely deeOl'ative."
Fritz Stahl, P"ris (Berlin