Corrugated Iron – Building on the Frontier - Hardcover

Holloway, Simon; Mornement, Adam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393732401 ISBN 13: 9780393732405

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008

Synopsis

Within a few years engineers were putting up warehouses and elegant railway stations of corrugated iron. By the late 1840s entrepreneurial manufacturers were sending out build-it-yourself cottages for gold prospectors in California and Australia. Whole townships complete with churches, sports pavilions, hotels, and meeting halls were soon available from catalogs, to be flat-packed and sent around the world. The First World War brought the development of the shelter known as the Nissen hut, perhaps the most iconic of all corrugated iron buildings and forerunner of the Quonset hut. Today corrugated sheet metal has proved invaluable in relief work and is used so often as roofing in the developing world that it can lay claim to shelter more people from the elements than any other building material. But the big surprise comes as architects around the world rediscover the virtues of this durable, biodegradable, and environmentally sound material, sufficiently versatile to create unique works of architecture and to house thousands in disaster zones. It answers the needs of both high-tech aesthetics and low-tech aspirations for affordability and ease of construction, as demonstrated by such cutting-edge architects as Will Bruder and Lake/Flato Architects in the United States; Glenn Murcutt in Australia; Rem Koolhaas, Nicholas Grimshaw, and Foreign Office Architects in Europe; and Shuhei Endo in Japan. Whether the appeal lies in nostalgia for rain on rusting tin roofs or in the sophistication of contemporary architecture, corrugated iron deserves to be taken seriously. It has a long and fascinating history and a future as bright as its past.

About this title

Review:

[A] fascinating study.--Mia Jacobi

This tells the evolving story of the material in a thoughtful way, with an obvious passionate love for the material.

This is a book that heralds the array of uses and finally gives corrugated metal its moment in the sun.--David Lake

Corrugated metal surely stands alongside the great inventions, a democratic and international material...[A]n enthralling piece of social and global history.--Edwin Heathcote

A book that heralds the array of uses and finally gives corrugated metal its moment in the sun.--David Lake, FAIA, Lake-Flato Architects

What makes this book more than eye candy is the authors' exhaustive treatment. Clearly they love the subject.

[A] well-researched, well-written and engaging narrative....Highly recommended for designers generally and anyone broadly interested in design and design history.

[F]ascinating...follows the rich and varied history of this versatile material...[A] well-researched, well-written and engaging narrative.--Kathy Fox

[C]atnip to architecturally minded modernists....the book is replete with fascinating reproductions of posters, catalog copy, and architectural renderings....a wonderful book.--Daniel Akst

About the Author:

Simon Holloway is an engineer and an expert in architectural restoration. He lives in Shropshire, England, and is the author of a prize-winning historical atlas of breeding birds. His great passion is researching and communicating the history of corrugated iron. Adam Mornement is a writer and editor specializing in the history of design and contemporary architecture. His books include Extensions, Treehouses, and No Longer Notorious.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0393732401
• ISBN 13: 9780393732405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224