Detail: Bauen mit Beton | Concrete Construction | Construire en béton, 4/2003

Editorial

Opinions about con­crete are di­vi­ded. En­gi­neers app­re­ciate it for its struc­tu­ral pro­per­ties, ar­chi­tects for its sur­face qua­li­ties; but it is dif­fi­cult to con­vey any sense of poe­try in an un­clad con­crete fa­cade to the ge­ne­ral pu­blic.

Concrete does not au­to­ma­ti­cally have to be iden­ti­fied with mas­sive forms of con­struc­tion, howe­ver. In the pionee­ring age of this ma­te­rial, it was used to build slen­der trus­ses, shell struc­tu­res and even ships – struc­tu­res which can now be crea­ted pro­perly only with the aid of new ag­gre­ga­tes and fibre rein­force­ment.