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MODERN
CONSTRUCTION
HANDBOOK
SIXTH EDITION

ANDREW WATTS

Birkhäuser Newtecnic
 1 2 3
INTRODUCTION 5 MATERIALS 19 WALLS 77 ROOFS 195
Introduction to sixth edition 6 1 Steel 20 Trends in facade design 78 Trends in roof design 196
Governing aspects of design 7 Production 22
Information layout 8 Performance 24 Generic wall types 84 Metal roofs
Design motivation 10 Applications 25 1 Metal standing seam 200
Materials and assembly 11 2 Aluminium 26 Metal 2 Profiled metal sheet 204
Performance 13 Production 28 1 Sheet metal 86 3 Composite panels 208
Realisation of architectural intent Performance 30 2 Profiled cladding 90 4 Rainscreens 212
through integration of strategies 14 Applications 31 3 Composite panels 94 5 Metal louvres 216
Relation to other design industries 15 3 Copper, zinc, lead 32 4 Rainscreens 98
Application cases 16 Production 32 5 Mesh screens 102 Glass roofs
The Modern Construction Series 17 Performance 34 6 Louvre screens 106 1 Greenhouse glazing
Qualifying comments 17 Applications 35 and capped systems 220
4 Stone 36 Glass systems 110 2 Silicone-sealed glazing
Production 36 1 Stick systems 114 and rooflights 224
Performance 36 2 Unitised glazing 118 3 Bolt fixed glazing 228
Applications 39 3 Clamped glazing 122 4 Bonded glass
5 Glass 40 4 Bolt fixed glazing 126 rooflights 232
Production 42 5 Glass blocks
Performance 44 and channels 130 Concrete roofs
6 Concrete 46 6 Steel windows 134 1 Concealed
Production 48 7 Aluminium windows 138 membrane 236
Performance 50 8 Timber windows 142 2 Exposed
Applications 51 membrane 240
7 Fibre reinforced Concrete 3 Planted roof 244
concrete 52 1 Cast in-situ 146
Production 53 2 Storey height panels 150 Timber roofs
Performance 54 3 Small precast panels 154 1 Flat roof: mastic
Applications 55 asphalt coverings 248
8 Ceramics 56 Masonry 2 Flat roof: bitumen-
Production 56 1 Loadbearing walls 158 based sheet 252
Performance 58 2 Cavity walls 3 Pitched roof: tiles 256
Applications 59 Brick 162
9 Timber 60 Stone and block 166 Fibre reinforced polymer roofs
Production 62 3 Cladding 170 1 FRP rooflights 260
Performance 64 4 Rainscreens 174 2 FRP panels and
Applications 65 shells 264
10 Polymers 66 Fibre reinforced polymers
Production 70 1 FRP cladding 178 Fabric systems
Performance 72 2 FRP rainscreens 182 1 ETFE cushions 268
2 Single membrane:
11 Material testing 74 Timber cone-shaped roof 272
Testing of building 1 Timber frame 186 3 Single membrane:
materials 74 2 Cladding panels 190 barrel-shaped roof 276
 CONTENTS
4 5 6
STRUCTURE 281 ENVIRONMEN T 349 APPLICATIONS 419 REFERENCES 495
Material systems Environmental studies for 1 Working with industry 420 Glossary of terms 496
for structures 282 envelopes 350 2 Triangular panels for Authorship 500
twisted facades 422 Photo credits 501
Elements of structures 284 Analysis for design 3 Twisted panels with flat Index 502
1 Solar radiation 354 glass for curved facades 424
Braced frames 2 Daylight 358 4 Solar shading louvres 430
1 Reinforced concrete 286 3 Thermal 5 Double-skin facades 434
2 Steel 290 performance 360 6 Precast concrete panels
3 Timber 294 4 Wind 362 for facades of complex
5 Solar shading 364 geometry 436
Portal frames 298 6 Double skin 7 Exoskeleton facades of
facades 372 complex geometry 440
Loadbearing boxes 7 Natural ventilation 378 8 Diagrid structures 442
1 Reinforced 8 Thermal mass 380 9 Hybrid systems forming facades
concrete 302 of complex geometry 444
2 Brick 306 Low-energy material 10 Opaque cladding interface
3 Glass 310 systems with full-height glazing 448
1 Embodied energy 382 11 Complex curved
Trusses 314 2 Green walls 386 glazed roofs 450
12 Large-scale glazed
Arches and Active design facades 454
shells 318 1 Liquid based heating/ 13 Panelisation of complex building
cooling systems 388 surface geometry 456
Space grids 322 2 Mechanical heating/ 14 Opaque rainscreen
cooling systems 390 cladding 460
Floor structures 3 Electrical lighting 396 15 Full-height glazing with GRP-
1 Cast in situ/ 4 Raised floors 398 clad structural frame 462
cast in place 5 Internal ceilings 400 16 GRC cladding interfaces 464
concrete 326 17 Full-height entrance
2 Precast Support services glazing 466
concrete 328 1 Sanitation and 18 GRP louvres on stick
3 Steel and drainage 402 glazing system 468
steel mesh 330 1 Maintenance and 19 GRC cladding 474
4 Timber 332 cleaning 404 20 Windows in GRC cladding 476
5 Glass 336 2 Lifts 410 21 Windows and unitised
glazing with GRC cladding 480
Stairs Performance testing 22 Unitised glazing with GRC
1 Concrete 340 1 Facade material cladding 482
2 Steel 342 systems 412 23 Complex glazed roofs with
3 Timber 344 2 Roof material supporting steel structure 484
4 Glass 346 systems 416 24 Glazed roofs with complex
geometry 488
25 Louvres and stick glazing 490
MCH_ 4
INTRODUCTION
Introduction to sixth edition
Governing aspects of design
Information layout
Design motivation
Materials and assembly
Performance
Realisation of architectural intent through integration of strategies
Relation to other design industries
Application cases
The Modern Construction series
Qualifying comments

MCH_ 5
 Introduction to sixth edition

Materials and Assembly

Performance Architectural Intent

a Example of curved glazed facade system supported on steel tubes b Relation of governing aspects of design

This book presents building and envelope technologies as current technologies to be designed and implemented. To further
entities independent of previous application; the technologies this book's intent, detailed applications of the technologies in
are instead presented according to their principle material and building projects are not provided. Some suggestions are given as
key characteristics. This is contrary to the traditional method to potential applications, but the aim of these example systems is to
of building component presentation found in existing technical inspire new designs rather than provide a set method of application.
manuals and manufacturer specifications, which commonly focus Therefore, the text provides the information required to select and
on the traditional application of each technology. The current apply the technologies in a way that is flexible; it does not explicitly
available publications focus on the specific application of building guide or restrict the designers' use of them. The skill of combining
technologies for rectilinear buildings; grouping technologies in and applying the technologies to a building design project remains
terms of building type rather than the basic principles which govern with the individual designer, as this requires creativity which is
them. This approach allows the corresponding current technologies inspired but can not be taught. This and the other books in the
for standard systems to be compared easily. However, it is often Modern Construction Series therefore facilitate the continuation
not possible to extract the driving principles behind the technology of an innovative design process, enabling complex buildings to be
from an examination of its application in buildings alone. Also, the achieved through an economically feasible and sustainable design.
principles and generalised guidelines which made the technology
applicable for a certain application may not be applicable to Technical publications of building technologies are most commonly
another building technology: therefore, the design of alternative used during the detailed design phase of a building system. The
system types incorporating these technologies is restricted. basis for detailed calculations and system design, the early stage
designs for a given system are consequently less specific in the
The materials-based approach specific to this book allows parallels choice of materials and systems for structures and facades. This
to be drawn between building technologies that are based on late introduction of the specific facade technology into the design
the same primary material. The development and use of building process creates a large disadvantage in terms of maximising system
technologies are informed mainly by the physical properties efficiency. A key fact which has been presented in multiple research
specific to each material and the way the material is processed, publications highlights that the value of building performance and
manufactured or formed for use as a building material. Arranging associated construction costs are both determined by the early
with respect to material also provides greater freedom for the stage design. The design process for buildings usually involves
designer in how the technology is applied in a system. The design the production of interim reports which provide a snapshot of
is then formed based on the individual technology's characteristics drawings, calculations and evolving specifications at a given point
and performance. The approach allows innovative applications of in time. The integration of technical design early in the design

MCH_ 6
c Example of curved and folded glass corner detail d Example of GRC-clad steel tube secondary facade structure and GRP
external shading louvres fixed to curved glazing

process provides opportunities for the technologies used to inform Governing aspects of design
the design process as well as to inform the design ‘product’. Building system constructions can be thought of as having three
The linking of building systems so that they can interface more governing aspects; the materials and assembly, the system
easily has long been an aspiration of manufacturers; the current performance and the architectural intent or integration of
situation is one where few systems coordinate easily with each strategies. All three are interlinked (b) with factors of one aspect
another (a). Interfaces between different building systems can be often affecting factors in one or both of the other aspects;
extremely complex and difficult to design prior to construction, considering all three aspects is key to a successful design as they
resulting in laborious onsite fabrication to resolve the interfaces, form the foundation for the building systems. All aspects can be
which restricts the ability to achieve continuous high performance considered in parallel; due to the interlinked nature, the different
across the whole building and envelope. This suggests that the constraints and opportunities for the design related to each aspect
taxonomy of building systems incorporated in this book should be can have an impact on the constraints and opportunities of the
based on a robust set of genuinely different generic types: these other two aspects. Given the nature of the design process, with the
would have to be identified independently of current systems of greatest impact on the system design achieved in the initial phase
classification, such as those described in designers' specifications. and a potential for design influence that then exponentially decays
The structure of architecture-based specifications identifies over the duration of the project, the described approach can be
components and assemblies in interrelated sections, where adopted from the initial design stage. This will provide the required
each sub-item in the assembly is identified independently: such as impact on the design, allowing the required level of performance
‘curtain walling’, which itself comprises several generic external and sustainability to be achieved.
wall types set out in this book. Specifications then link items such
as ‘curtain walling’ to their constituent materials of glass, seals, This book aims to present current construction technologies and
paint finishes and so on under quite different headings. While the trends, highlighting characteristics relating to the three governing
system is useful in describing a building for use by a contractor, aspects for each topic or system. This is in order to enable the
particularly with regard to national standards including those for existing technologies to be integrated to form a feasible building
performance testing, specifications do not relate to the parts system design, which is achieved through the interpretation
in a way that can be easily used at the design stage in order to of the designer. Technologies can be assessed and compared
understand generic facade assemblies. Therefore, the approach independently of traditional application to allow an advantageous
taken in the classification system of the Modern Construction application to be determined, which may not correlate with the
Handbook is to group items in a way known to building design traditional applications of the technology. The integration of
teams: structure, walls, roofs, and environment. technologies should be based on the key aspects of materials

MCH_ 7
 Introduction to sixth edition

a Envelope with curved and folded glass corner b Example of solar insolation analysis of c Section through double skin facade with
detail complex forms plants in cavity

and assembly, performance and architectural intent, rather than comprise the building technologies, and ends with advanced
previous project applications. This text also demonstrates the shift applications of the systems described in the intermediate
and continuity between traditionally constructed pre-industrial chapters, providing insight into the complex systems which can
buildings and the current technologies which can be used to form be achieved through the integration of current technologies. The
the mass customised complex geometry buildings of the 21st category of materials precedes the technology specific chapters,
century. The word ‘complex’ is used to denote geometries which since an understanding of the physical nature of materials is
are not rectilinear, and therefore cannot be described by plans and essential in construction-led architecture. The material properties
sections which can be extruded in a straight line through the form and characteristics are given in a comparative form to allow the
of the building. potential materials for a specific technology to be compared and
evaluated, based on the key performance factors and required
Information layout characteristics for a system. The current manufacturing methods
The construction of buildings has, historically, been based on a for producing construction materials are also detailed, allowing
varying relationship between loadbearing structure, walls and the stages of the manufacturing process to be understood and
roofs, and this forms the basis of classification in this book. In considered when selecting materials for an assembly with regards
some buildings, the walls, roofs and structure are a single entity, to sustainability. The chapter presents how the tectonics of
as they are in medieval cathedrals – with the exception of their material systems have been used historically and how digital tools
additional timber roofs, used to protect the structural ceiling. In are bringing flexibility back into building construction, something
framed construction, the walls and roofs can be continuous over which was considered to be too expensive until the arrival of CAD/
a single supporting structure: while in many cases of 20th century CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing).
construction, walls, roofs and structure are quite separate, and This return to an almost pre-industrial approach to design allows
are then subdivided within each category to provide a 'collage' new buildings to develop a much closer empathy with existing
form of construction where systems are overlaid in the manner buildings, even if the technologies used are very different. The non-
of a visual collage. rectilinear nature of some of the material systems allows them to
engage more robustly and elegantly with the existing fabric, both
The current technologies used in the design of contemporary pre-industrial and that of 20th century Modernism in architecture.
buildings are presented, grouping the technology systems in
distinct chapters covering walls, roofs, structure and environment. In the current technology sections, the relevant characteristics of
The book begins with a chapter on building materials, providing each technology are described, covering a wide range of elements
knowledge of the initial processes of forming the materials that from material performance to assembly method; these elements

MCH_ 8
d Example of composite panel arrangement e Example of typical loadbearing brick wall con-
with metal rainscreen figuration with masonry piers

can all be mapped back to the three key aspects mentioned in environmental terms, the use of several layers of envelope and
earlier sections. The three aspects of materials and assembly, structure in a single building can create a much richer set of
performance and architectural intent are themes which run internal spaces than those provided by the single-skin envelope.
throughout the book; these details are presented in each current The outer wall can be made of a double skin, or even as a deep
technology section. The paragraphs on ‘system design’ show zone within the building, which is an inhabitable equivalent of the
how the generic example works. Generic system examples of the 'twin wall' or 'double skin' facade. This has helped to inform both
technology are discussed in the text, providing information on their material systems – not all of which need to be sealed – as well
assembly and the mechanical performance as a primary structure as the environment chapter where passive cooling, heating and
or enclosure. The method for applying the system to different ventilation can be used to reduce overall energy consumption as
geometries is explained in ‘system details’. The geometries well as create a stronger link between the built environment of the
show how the system can be set out on different mathematically city and the building itself. The information laid out in this section
based surfaces, and how it can meet at corners and junctions. aims to assist this aim.
The information is simply presented without additional analysis
or guidance, so as to provide flexibility for application in design Lifts/elevators are described within the environment chapter since
projects. The technologies can then be compared and selected they are usually considered to be part of the mechanical systems,
based purely on their characteristics and performance for use in the layout of which is designed by a specialist consultant. As a result
building and facade systems, with system examples used to inspire of this last decision it can be seen that the environment section
potential design solutions. could include both systems that reduce energy consumption by
using low-energy passive strategies, as well as high-energy active
The environmental chapter provides an overview of building physics strategies such as mechanical ventilation, and lifts/elevators can
and its influence on a facade system design. The environmental be seen as part of this strategy to make tall buildings usable.
elements have a large impact on all three key aspects; for example
the material properties will influence thermal transmission through The final chapter gives illustrations of possible applications of
the envelope, therefore impacting the performance of the envelope the technologies. This is intended to provide inspiration to the
and the conditions of the internal spaces. In order to meet the designer as to what can be achieved through the combination of
architectural intent in terms of structural form, the integration of these current technologies, rather than giving explicit guidance
the technologies in the system influences environmental factors on how they should be used. This chapter also adds a parametric
of the occupied spaces such as the airflow and temperature, component to some of the examples, thus highlighting the range
which will affect occupant comfort and energy consumption. In of possibilities that might exist for some of the examples shown.

MCH_ 9
 Introduction to sixth edition

a Detail fragment showing GRC rainscreen cladding interface with b Example of complex curved glazed roof supported on steel tubes
roof surface build up

Design motivation increase the ceiling zone depth and require services and ducts
The effect of building construction on the environment has been to be redirected to accommodate them. With the elimination of
of concern since at least the 1960s. There is now a need for these non-uniform servicing and duct routings, it is considered
sustainable design; more than just reducing energy consumption. acceptable to have services exposed, removing the need for a
The effect in building construction is firstly a growing awareness of suspended ceiling as its original function of directing air has been
the energy required to construct buildings, or ‘embodied energy’, replaced by ductwork. This leads to a reduction in floor height as
and secondly the energy required to operate the building when the ceiling void depth is effectively eliminated, producing benefits
in use. The embodied energy part of the equation is concerned mainly in reducing the material required for the building. The overall
with the combined amount of energy needed to manufacture the height of the building is reduced, decreasing the primary structure
materials, to transport them to site, then install them on site. One mass and the area of facade required.
method of reducing this is to make system designs and assemblies
simple in order to allow for local production with non-specialised 20th century Modernist architecture can be considered in terms of
equipment, limiting the transport-related carbon impact. its response to mass production techniques through the use of the
Sustainability should not limit the creativity of the design but fuel it; structural frame. Building components and assemblies were used
ambitious building designs should be realised not by simplifying the as repeated identical elements in building compositions. The use of
concept or geometry but by simplifying the systems used to make steel or concrete frames led to building envelopes being enclosed
the complex design achievable. Striving for increased simplicity in in non-loadbearing cladding. The use of repeated, rectilinear bays
system assembly also provides honesty in the construction, along can be seen as a response to manufacture, including the straight
with advantages in structural and material efficiency. lines of cut timber and plywood used for concrete formwork.
Consequently, as a result of the widespread use of the structural
An example of simplification can be seen in the development of the frame in much of 20th century Modernist architecture, the
ceiling void, which was originally designed to provide a contained separation of structure and external wall has dominated where the
airflow route to expel air from the internal space without creating facade is reduced to non-loadbearing walls. This trend is now being
uncomfortable airflows in the occupied space. With increased reversed as new materials and manufacturing techniques provide
mechanical and technological servicing, the function of this space the ability to easily create non-rectilinear forms. This provides
shifted to one of concealing servicing. The trend is now moving opportunities for increased integration of the envelope system
towards exposed servicing in the ceiling space. This development back into the primary structure, as the method of using rectilinear
has been driven by the creation of flat slabs which resist punching bays as an assembly is no longer a necessity. The integration of
shear, eliminating the requirement for slab down-stands which skin and structure into loadbearing facades can also allow much
MCH_ 10
c Example of environmetal analysis: Cumulative shadow projection for a d Example of model showing mechanical ventilation system
complex form

greater freedom in the design of the external envelope to suit the Materials and assembly
requirements of the spaces immediately behind. Both loadbearing Materials and assembly forms the tangible element of the
and deep rainscreens are possible solutions for this approach. design; it is often considered as the more straightforward
aspect. This category encompasses: the materials used and
The recent introduction of computer-controlled tools has taken their properties, the manufacturing methods and the physical
away the imperative of mass production, offering instead assembly. The materials chapter provides fundamental material
possibilities of 'mass customisation' where many components of data to inform material choice for a specific technology or system.
different size can be produced quickly to the required quality. In Additional information is given with regard to manufacture and
terms of the relationship between structure and external envelope, typical applications based on historic and current trends. For
the introduction of mass customisation suggests that systems each material there are certain inherent constraints, but also
for both facades and structures could become more complex and opportunities relating to the properties and the methods for
interdependent, while remaining economical by the standards of manufacture: these are discussed in each section. The information
contemporary building construction. provided should be taken as knowledge to fuel the design of
building systems of any geometry or complexity. Current trends
As previously mentioned, there are three key aspects which should include the increased use of insulation in envelope build-ups in
be considered when creating a building system design: materials order to increase the thermal performance leading to a reduction
and assembly, performance, and the integration of strategies in heating and cooling loads. The way in which materials are used
to realise the architectural intent. These underpin the design of is evolving, with increased use of metal and concrete panels as a
high-performance building systems, regardless of geometric rain screen. The method of fixing elements is also evolving, with
complexity or external constraints. The three aspects are highly a trend towards simplified connections; for example connections
interdependent; they can be evaluated separately but must be in glazing are moving increasingly towards glued and clamped
balanced and considered in parallel to achieve an optimised connections with a gradual reduction in the number of metal
design. During the course of this book, each current technology fixings. There is also an increased use of composite materials,
is presented with text describing the relevant characteristics, such as fibre-reinforced concretes and polymers for both cladding
constraints and opportunities which can be linked to the three and structural applications. The materials chapter will provide the
key aspects of design. These aspects, explained in the following relevant information to aid in the design of building structures and
sections, can be mapped and compared to inform design decisions envelope systems. For each material there are certain inherent
for the creation of a building system design. constraints but also opportunities relating to the properties and the
methods for manufacture. These are discussed in each section.
MCH_ 11
 Introduction to sixth edition

a Exploded detail view showng polycarbonate composite b Example of polycarbonate composite panel construction
panel joint construction

The information provided should be taken as knowledge to fuel the components can be more geometrically complex, either as
design of building systems of any geometry or complexity. individual components or as complete building assemblies. Recent
developments in building forms have been seen in both twisted and
Current architectural design has a preference for rectilinear spaces folded geometries.
linked in a spatial organisation which is also primarily rectilinear,
though dependent upon site conditions, based around the use of The approach of folded and twisted building forms is a way of
rectilinear structural frames. The design generated is then given introducing complex geometry while maintaining contemporary
an outward facade expression of materials formed with openings principles of 'repeatability' in order to make them economical to
or wraps as an interface between the internal arrangement of build using a conventional approach to construction. In this sense,
the building and its immediate site context. An alternative design the approach of twisted and folded forms is an intermediary one
methodology is to add the material systems to that mix, using between the rectilinear repetition of Modernist construction and
integration methods as an additional driving factor. This leads the emerging construction methods described here. The current
the design into a direct connection with traditional loadbearing approach to folded and twisted facades requires geometric
construction but moves it forward with changing methods of discipline in order to maintain the repeatability of components,
industrial production. Digital tools allow the performance of a design mainly facade panels, used in conventional construction techniques.
to be explored and optimised (MCH_14, b), and be developed to With the greater introduction of digital fabrication tools, the need
enable the fabrication of a component which has not been made in to maintain a geometric discipline will slowly disappear, perhaps
a particular way before. Alternatively, a design may use historical making design choices more dependent on the principles of design
models, either to endorse the construction methods of existing performance that is imperative in buildings.
buildings, to mix old and new to create something new, or even to
advance what is already constructed by physically adjusting it using In terms of manufacture and assembly, there is a balance to be
the same material but a different material system. determined between on- and off-site production; both have certain
advantages and there is commonly a combination of the two,
From the point of view of construction, the highly integrated and because in modern construction it is not practical to use purely
also geometrically complex system could be achieved with digital one form of production. Details are given in each section relating
tools for design and fabrication; the tools of mass customisation. to the construction and assembly sequence for each technology.
The possibility of mass customisation of components allows These can be compared and collated when designing a system to
a departure from the repeated rectilinear component so that ensure its construction is feasible.

MCH_ 12
c Case example of GRC rainscreen facade

One example of the opportunity in material and assembly aspects building structure and internal space, it is the interface between
is found in FRP composite cladding, which utilises the high strength- the internal and external spaces of the building. This system
to-weight ratio properties of the composite material in addition to must function at a high level to be structurally stable and create
the composite action of the panel assembly. The panels consist of the desired internal environment while minimising the energy
two thin sheets of FRP separated by rigid thermal insulation and consumption of services. An essential factor of environmental
clamp-fixed on all sides (a). This separation of the sheets provides concern is the energy consumed by the building in use. Natural
a greater bending resistance resulting in a stiffer panel. The FRP ventilation, thermal mass and associated issues of night-time
material used has a high strength-to-weight ratio, particularly in cooling have become primary tools in reducing energy consumption
tension, allowing the sheet thickness and weight to be reduced. The for heating and cooling buildings. This has resulted in the
buckling failure, which would also be common for a thin sheet of reintroduction of opening windows and cross ventilation in building
FRP in compression, is restricted by the internal thermal insulation envelope systems. Where spaces are required to have a high level
which prevents the sheets from buckling inwards, enabling the of technical performance, or a specific daylight provision, these
sheet thickness to be reduced further. The assembly allows for a aims can be achieved without immediate reference to the external
decreased panel thickness, but the inclusion of a thermal insulation envelope, but instead to the building structure. An interstitial zone
filling and thermal breaks in the extruded frame means a good between internal spaces and external facade structures creates
thermal performance of the wall can still be achieved. The system an opportunity for a buffer zone between them (MCH_8, c), which
elements are simple to manufacture and combined into unitised could be used as an inhabited space or for circulation around the
panels which can be manufactured off-site and then assembled building.
on-site to create the desired structure, creating a straightforward
and quick assembly process (b). Further information on this system The performance aspects of technologies are detailed throughout
can be found in the section of fibre reinforced polymers as wall the chapters. Information is provided regarding methods for
systems (MCH_178). providing effective waterproofing and thermal performance both for
the main area and for joints within each system. When combining
Performance technologies, this information must be collated and compared
The performance of an envelope or structural system is another in order to inform the integration of technologies to a high-
critical element which underpins the whole design; a successful performing envelope system. The integration of skin and structure
building system cannot be achieved without consideration of into a loadbearing facade has obvious difficulties. The conventional
the performance aspects from the beginning of the design. The ‘layered’ approach of cladding applied to structural forms in
envelope has the function of providing weather resistance for the Modernist construction has the advantage of superimposing

MCH_ 13
 Introduction to sixth edition

a Example of environmental analysis: Adapted shading system design b Example shading layout construction, where the density of
based on solar radiation analysis shading can be varied

waterproofing, thermal insulation and vapour barriers to form a provides a high level of flexibility in the overall design of the building.
sequential wall build-up. In loadbearing facades, it is more difficult This integration results from the geometric 'behaviour' of the being
to integrate these different functions into a single structural wall. In better controlled than would be the case if components did not
combining current technologies to form an emerging technology, have 'rules' set for their combination in a facade assembly.
the technical performance of the new technology is dependent
upon the successful integration of the existing technologies. The tendency is to avoid interfaces; these arise from the
combinations of different systems – typically walls and roofs.
An example of the consideration of performance aspects can be Interfaces can have a lower performance than the body of the
seen in the inclusion of customised solar shading technologies facade system and therefore reduce the performance of the
to create a comfortable internal environment. The overall envelope as a whole. These can be avoided by providing a single
performance of the envelope is increased by using targeted shading material system using the technologies detailed in this book. A
design, which customises the shading level to the specific facade single material system, however, is not always suitable as there
area, based on a solar radiation study of the proposed building is a balance to be found between the function of the envelope and
form and orientation (a). Shading in general is used to improve the the level of integration reflected through the extent of interfaces.
performance to create a comfortable internal environment; this is In certain circumstances, it is more beneficial to create a higher
taken to another level of increased performance by customising performing system through the combination of a range of material
the shading based on the incident solar radiation of each envelope systems. The option of flexibility provided by multiple material
area (b). The result is that an increased level of shading is used in systems of higher integration is beneficial for projects with certain
areas of high-incident solar radiation to reduce the thermal gains site, structure and design constraints. The example of a completely
in the internal spaces corresponding to those areas, reducing the self-contained unit in a rural site with no infrastructure allows for
cooling load of the building. Further information on this system complete integration of both the envelope systems and the building
can be found in the section on solar shading as an environmental structure, as there are no governing external constraints. However,
system (MCH_364). this is rarely the case; the majority of building projects have to
be designed to fit into the existing infrastructure landscape and
Realisation of architectural intent through integration of constraints. In this case, a more flexible and therefore slightly less
strategies integrated envelope system can be advantageous. For example,
The elements integrated to form a facade system impact the for a building to be constructed in a large city where the site area
overall system design, and vice versa. The existing technologies is highly constricted, a more flexible modular system could be
are selected to meet the envelope design and architectural intent, preferable. This would allow the system to be fabricated off site,
but also to enhance it. To achieve this, a high level of integration providing a certain degree of system integration of assemblies
is required from the initial facade concept, an approach which which can then be transported to site, in small units, for installation.
MCH_ 14
c Overviews showing bolt fixed glazing supported by branching steel d Example of metal-clad steel exoskeleton and unitised glazing
framework facade

Some building designs for complex forms evolve as a result of more iterations can be investigated and explored than are possible
more information being known about the building, allowing more by hand using conventional 2D CAD, or even by conventional
of the design to be fixed. Consequently, the different criteria of physical modelling.
the design can be set as ‘parameters’ which can be related as
a matrix in the form of a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet can be Bolt fixed glazing is an example of a technology which has
linked to the process of modelling the building forms digitally in a opportunities related to architectural intent aspects and the
parametric design software. Working parametrically allows the integration of strategies. The structure and glazing system
design to establish what is ‘fixed’ and what will be 'variable' in the can be integrated to form a single slimline system. This can be
design development. This approach allows a digital design method advantageous both in terms of reducing the structural weight and
to evolve. In facade design, the behaviour of the model as a set of complexity, and in realising an architectural intent of high visibility
surfaces can be understood by number, size, geometry and so on. throughout the envelope if desired. Lateral stability can be provided
The relationship of the parameters in the design allows the digital by wide lateral bracket fixing arms which increase the structural
model to evolve through an engineering-based method of iteration, stability of the system, enabling it to be used to form large spans of
rather than starting the digital design model again each time a glazed facade (c). Further information on this system can be found
new option is explored. This approach requires some discipline and in the section on bolt fixed glazing as a wall system (MCH_126).
clarity in the design approach at the outset, which often makes
the parametric design method more suited to design development Relation to other design industries
than initial design research. However, parametric plug-ins are The building industry moves at a considerably slower pace than
becoming available for early stage design software, ensuring that of technology or transport design industries in terms of its
that the parametric approach is gaining influence throughout the rate of technological development. This is in part due to the scale,
design process. which is considerably larger for building technologies, meaning that
full-scale prototyping of a complete building system is impractical.
Different assemblies and component sizing and arrangements can This means the system must be physically tested in small sections
be explored through parametric modelling, which allows for the of around one or two storeys. The design is then validated through
optimisation of complex system arrangements. This variation in predictive modelling and interpretation of small scale testing; the
more complex arrangements of linked spaces is tackled in projects complete performance of the building technology as part of a
where design is informed by an interest in parametric design, building system can only be determined after it is built into a new
where spaces can be linked by rhythm and links achieved through building construction. Because of this, the drive to develop building
the assistance of computer software. Parametric modelling technologies is often project-driven.
provides an interrelationship between parts of the building as well Building technologies also have very different requirements;
as the urban space surrounding it. Through this method, many there is a need for certain movements, durability and flexibility
MCH_ 15
 Introduction to sixth edition

a Case example of a large-scale unitised glazing system supported b Example of shingled glazing system supported on steel tubes
by double cable system and interfacing with metal-clad steel struc-
tural trusses

of the system and an increased lifespan with the ability to adapt a full-glazed facade across numerous storeys with a minimal
and update the system at a later point. There is also a need to visible intermediate supporting structure (a). This design pushes
be able to respond to change without creating inefficiency in the a current system to reach increased performance in order to
initial design. The system may need to respond to changes in load allow the architectural intent of a large facade span with a high
paths, cladding and glazing elements and architectural intent, for level of visibility, which is achieved through increased performance
example. in terms of structural efficiency, waterproofing and thermal
performance. This approach of maximising the performance of
Development within the building industry is usually project-based an existing technology is a relatively low-risk method of achieving
and therefore emerging technologies are developed based on increased performance with an integrated system, enabling the
the demands/intent of a specific project. However, emerging desired architectural intent to be created.
technologies can be taken from other industries, such as the
use of polymer seals, providing opportunities for envelope system Another case is a building design which points to a new technology
design. The use of parametric design in architecture has been but is constructed using existing technologies. These projects
centred around the use of software that was originally developed provide inspiration and direction for the development of new
for other industries. technologies. The designs are bold, and push the boundaries of
existing facade technologies, creating an opportunity for the
Application cases development of an emerging technology. An example of this is in
Considering the three aspects as described in previous sections, a Applications 11: complex curved glazed roofs (MCH_452), This
firm basis is provided for creating an integrated high-performance case shows a complex curved glazed roof consisting of small,
system design. This can be advantageous when simplifying the geometrically identical panels (b). This points to the development of
system and reducing the material weight used, which has numerous a panelisation tool to enable a complex geometry glazed envelope
benefits including increasing the sustainability of the design and formed from unitised panels. This tool would allow the system seen
reducing the system cost. Example cases are presented in the in this case to be transformed into a uniform watertight envelope,
following paragraphs to provide inspiration for routes in which the formed of unitised glazed panels which are optimised in terms of
technologies presented in this book can be taken forward using geometry and assembly.
different approaches to inform building design projects.
The final case is one in which the development of an emerging
The first case is an example of a current technology: this is where technology is used to meet the requirements of a particular project,
an existing technology is utilised with a focus on optimising the as previously mentioned, which typically is how the development of
current technology to create a higher-performing system. An new technologies is produced. This can be a material, construction
example of this can be found in Applications 12: large-scale glazing method or a design tool that adds value to the system. This final
facades (MCH_454). This case is one of clamped glazing enabling case is generally higher risk, as a larger initial investment is required
MCH_ 16
c Case example of full height glazing with integrated GRP-clad structural frame

for the development of the new technology in order to cover the systems, to enable a detailed system design to be formed for an
design, analysis and testing required to prove the feasibility and envelope system. Modern Construction Case Studies then gives
performance of a new technology. An example of this case type project-based examples of the application of current technologies
can be seen in Applications 15: full height glazing with GRP-clad presented in the series, and emerging technologies. The other two
structural frame (MCH_462). In this project the structure has books provide a greater basis for understanding the factors which
been fully integrated into the glazed wall system, significantly need to be considered to accommodate complex geometries
reducing the depth of the combined envelope and structure (c). within the building system design. Modern Structural Design and
This is achieved by coordinating the design of the envelope and the Modern Environmental Design set out strategies for the integration
structure to ensure both are high-performing and easy to fit when of site context, spatial arrangement and internal circulation with
combined to form the final system. In this case, the architectural structural and environmental deign considerations.
intent can be realised in a way that also provides greater structural
and material efficiency. Qualifying comments
The building techniques discussed and the built examples shown
The three different cases show that development can either occur are designed to last for an extended period with a relatively
incrementally or in large steps; each method of development high performance. Consequently, buildings for exhibitions and
carries a certain level of risk, with the final case of developing for temporary use are excluded. In addressing an international
and implementing emerging technologies carrying the greatest readership, references to national legislation, building regulations,
risk. All the application cases, however, follow the same approach codes of practice and national standards have specifically not been
intended by this book, of forming building systems from a collection included. This book explains the principles of accepted building
of technologies which are evaluated based on their characteristics techniques currently in use. Building codes throughout the world
and performance capabilities. are undergoing increased harmonisation because of increased
economic and intellectual globalisation. Building components and
The Modern Construction Series assemblies from many different countries are often used in a
The Modern Construction Handbook forms part of a series of single building. Since building codes are written to protect users of
modern construction books aimed at providing information for the buildings by providing for their health and safety, good construction
design of high-performing building systems. The series consists of: practice will always uphold these codes as well as assist in their
Modern Construction Handbook, Modern Construction Envelopes, advancement. The components, assemblies and details shown in
Modern Structural Design, Modern Environmental Design and this book describe many of the building techniques used by the
Modern Construction Case Studies. This book in particular building industry today, but this book does not necessarily endorse
provides an overview of current technologies and their relevant or justify their use since techniques in building are in a continual
materials relating to building structures and envelopes. Modern state of change and development.
Construction Envelopes provides increased detail of envelope
MCH_ 17
MCH_18
01
MATERIALS
1 Steel
Production
Performance
Applications
2 Aluminium
Production
Performance
Applications
3 Copper, zinc, lead
Production
Performance
Applications
4 Stone
Production
Performance
Applications
5 Glass
Production
Performance
6 Concrete
Production
Performance
Applications
7 Fibre reinforced concrete
Production
Performance
Applications
8 Ceramics
Production
Performance
Applications
9 Timber
Production
Performance
Applications
10 Polymers
Production
Performance
11 Material testing

MCH_19
 Materials 01
Steel

a Steel hollow profiles

800

700
σ - Nominal stress (MPa)

Density mild steel 7840 kg/m3 (490 lb/ft3) 600

500
from 275 N/mm² to 900 N/mm²
Design strength
(from 5.7 x 106 to 18.8 x 106 lbf/ft²) 400

Young’s modulus 210 kN/mm (4.4 x 10 lbf/ft )

² 9 ² 300

200
Coefficient of thermal expansion 11 x 10-6 K-1 (6.1 x 10-6 OF-1)
100
Thermal conductivity 45 W/mºC (26 BTU/hr.ft.OF) 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Specific heat capacity 480 J/kgºC (0.11 BTU/lbOF) ε - Nominal strain (%)

b Properties and data of structural carbon steels c Medium carbon steel stress-strain graph

Overview Comparison with other materials; general properties

In comparison with other materials, steels have the following general
Cast iron and wrought iron were the forerunners of steel. Cast iron, properties:
a brittle material with high compressive strength, came into general • High ductility (c), deforming long before they fail.
use as a building material at the end of the 18th century, while • Lighter than an equivalent structural member in reinforced
wrought iron was developed some 50 years later. Wrought iron is concrete (d).
a more ductile material and has greater tensile strength, making it • High stiffness (e). High rigidity in both tension and compression.
less susceptible to shock damage. By the end of the 19th century, • High strength in both tension and compression (f)(k).
both materials had been superseded by steel (a)(b)(c). Steel was first • Appearance is smooth in sheet form; rougher of texture in rolled
produced around 1740, but was not available in large quantities until sections and castings, even with paint applied.
Bessemer invented his converter in 1856. This device introduced • High impact resistance.
a method of blasting air into the furnace (hence ‘blast furnace’) to • Thermal expansion approximately half that of aluminium (g).
burn away the impurities that inhibited the extraction of a purer • High thermal conductivity (h).
iron. By 1840, standard shapes in wrought iron, mainly rolled flat • High electrical conductivity.
sections, tees and angles were available which could be fabricated • Susceptibility to continuous rusting, excluding weathering steels.
into structural components, which are then assembled by riveting • Low fire resistance.
them together. • Low specific heat (j).

MCH_20
 4000
Acrylic 1200 100 60 2.5 70 0.2 1400
2000

D
Young’

Yoa
100
PVC 1400 60 45 3 50 0.19 1300
3000 50

strengths Compressive
CFRP 1850 600 1000 80 1 0.35 1170 200
1000
2000
UHPC
50 2400 150 12 70 12 1 840
0
1000 Steel
0
100
00
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone
Stone Concrete
Concrete Ceramic
Ceramic Timber
Timber
http://uni-obuda.hu/journal/Oroszlany_Nagy_Kovacs_58.pdf 0
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone
Stone Concrete
Concrete Ceramic
Ceramic Timber
Timber
http://www.new-learn.info/packages/clear/thermal/buildings/building_fabric/properties/conductivity.html
Steel Aluminium
r [kg/m³]
3 http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-solids-d_154.html
4 http://sar2.epfl.ch/JDoctorants/Posters2006/64.pdf
EStone Concrete
[kN/mm² ] Ceramic Timber
vity.html
8000 5 http://www.pvc.org/en/p/pvc-strength
E [kN/mm² ] 250 sc - st [N/mm² ]
strengths

Steel performances
7000 sc - st [N/mm² ]

modulus
250 500
200
6000
a. Durability
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

and tensile
Density

500

expansion
b. Fire resistance
Young’s modulus

5000
200 400
150
25
Compressive and tensile

4000
400

Young’s
150
3000
1400
300
100
20
300
2000

Coeficient of thermal
Compressive and tensile strengths Compressive
100 200
50
1000 15
200
0
50 100
0
10
100 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
0 0
5
ty.html d Materials
0 density comparison
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber e MaterialsSteel
Young’sAluminium
modulus comparison
Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel Aluminium EStone
[kN/mm² ]
Concrete Ceramic Timber 0
250 Steel Aluminium sStone
c - st Concrete ]
[N/mm² Ceramic Timber
strengths

sc - st [N/mm² ] 500
tensilemodulus

200 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

of thermal expansion
500
150 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ] 400
25
expansion

25 l [W/(m*K)]
Coeficient of thermalYoung’s

400 300
20
100
20
300 250
200
15
Compressive and tensile strengthsCompressive and

50

conductivity
15
200 200
100
0 10
10 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 150
0

Coeficient
100 5
50 100 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber

Thermal
0
0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 50 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel Aluminium c - st
sStone [N/mm²
Concrete ] Ceramic Timber
f Materials tensile and compressive strength comparison 0
g Materials coefficient of thermal expansion comparison
500 aStone[10^-6Concrete
* kN/mm² ]
Steel Aluminium Ceramic Timber

of thermal expansion
400 25
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
of thermal expansion

20
l [W/(m*K)]
25
300
l [W/(m*K)] 250 C [J/(kg*K)]
20
200 15
conductivity
250 2000
200
heat capacity
conductivity

15
100 10
200 1500
150
Coeficient

010 5
150 100
Thermal

Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 1000

0
Coeficient

5
100
of thermal expansion Thermal

50 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber

Specific

500
500 0
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
0 0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
25
l [W/(m*K)]
h Materials
20 thermal conductivity comparison j Materials specific heat comparison
C [J/(kg*K)]
250
Cl [J/(kg*K)]
[W/(m*K)] 2000
heatconductivity

15
250 200
capacity

2000
10
conductivity

1500
capacity

200 150
1500
Coeficient

5 Nominal thickness of element t [mm]

150 100
1000
Thermal

0
1000
heat

100Standard 50
Specific

Steel
StonegradeConcrete t≤ 40 mm 40 mm < t ≤ 80 mm
Thermal

Steel Aluminium Ceramic Timber 500

Specific

500
50 0
fy [N/mm²] fu 0[N/mm²]
Steel Aluminiumfy [N/mm²]
Stone Concrete fu [N/mm²]Timber
Ceramic
00 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone
Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
l S 235 Concrete
[W/(m*K)]
Ceramic 235Timber 360 215 360
C [J/(kg*K)]
250
CS 275
[J/(kg*K)] 275 2000430 255 410
conductivity

EN 10025-2
Specific heat capacity

200
2000
S 355 355 1500490 335 470
150
heat capacity

1500 1000550
100 S 450 440 410 550
Specific Thermal

1000
50 500
S 275 N/NL 275 390 255 370
0
500 0
Steel Aluminium Stone N/NL
S 355 Concrete Ceramic355 Timber 490 Steel 335 470
Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
EN
0 10025-3
Steel Aluminium S StoneN/NLConcrete
420 Ceramic420 Timber 520 390 520
C [J/(kg*K)]
2000 S 460 N/NL 460 540 430 540
Specific heat capacity

1500 S 275 M/ML 275 370 255 360

1000
S 355 M/ML 355 470 335 450
EN
500 10025-4
S 420 M/ML 420 520 390 500
0
Steel Aluminium S 460
Stone M/ML
Concrete Ceramic 460Timber 540 430 530

S 235 W 235 360 215 340

EN 10025-5
S 355 W 355 490 335 490

EN 10025-6 S 460 Q/QL/QL1 460 570 440 550

k Characteristic values for medium carbon steel

MCH_21
 Materials 01
Steel

Iron ore and coke Ferrous scrap

O2

1250 °C Blast furnace Cast iron Furnace

1600 °C

Secondary
furnace
Oxygen converter 1600 °C
1600 °C

Cutting Steel products

Rolling mill
Billets

a Steel production process

Production

Steel is an iron-based metal alloyed with small amounts of other elements, made mostly in the form of plate (b), due to lower demand for their use.
the most important being carbon. The three main forms of steel used Consequently, compound shapes for structural components, such as
in the building industry are sections, sheets and castings. First, iron is beams and columns, must be specially fabricated.
refined from ores containing iron oxide. The iron oxide is heated in a
blast furnace until it is molten, using carbon as a reducing agent. The Hot rolled process
molten material is poured into moulds to produce pig iron. It is then re- Hot rolling is a mill process which involves rolling (c) the steel at a
heated to remove impurities, including carbon, to make cast iron that high temperature (typically over 920° C (1700° F), which is above
has a carbon content of 2.4 to 4 percent. Steel is produced by reducing the recrystallization temperature of steel. When the material is
the carbon content to approximately 0.2 percent, with materials such as heated beyond the recrystallization temperature, steel can be shaped
manganese and silicon added to halt the oxidation process and stabilise and formed easily, allowing the material to be formed as large-scale
the carbon content. It can be poured when molten to make castings or components. Hot rolled sections, such as H, I, L or U profiles (d), are
formed into ingots for later processing of steel elements (a). formed using caliber rolls in order to obtain the same cross-sectional
shape as that of the rolls. After producing a near cross section such as
Uses and Limitations an H-shape by caliber rolling, the product is finished by a universal mill
Structural mild steels are made in three types called ‘grades’, increasing and an edging mill (e). For example, an H-shaped cross section is formed
in design strength from 275N/mm² to 400N/mm² (5.7 x 106 lbf/ft² when the material passes through four rolls, making the universal mill,
to 8.3 x 106 lbf/ft² ), varying slightly in different regions of the world. which is equipped with a pair of vertical rolls and a pair of horizontal rolls,
High strength steels can reach design strengths of 800N/mm² (17.6 suitable for rolling H-beams. The edging mill is equipped with caliber
x 106 lbf/ft²). Since the Young’s Modulus is constant for all these rolls as shown in the diagram above, and has the ability to adjust the
types, the strength of the material increases but the stiffness remains flange widths of individual products. The arrangement of rolls varies
constant. Steel also increases in cost with higher levels of strength, with requirements for the specific cross-section of the material, but the
both in the cost of the raw material and in the working of the material. process for each profile is very similar.
In addition, as strength increases in the material, welding becomes
more difficult and consequently more specialised. In some high-strength Hot rolled steel is typically cheaper than its cold rolled equivalent due to
steels, which undergo heating and quenching during their manufacture, the fact that products are often manufactured at source, avoiding the
the effects of welding could potentially undo the work of manufacture if need for steel to be reheated, which is the case with cold rolled steel.
sufficient care is not taken. Standard rolled sections are manufactured As hot rolled steel cools, it shrinks slightly, allowing less control over the
in the low-to-medium-strength grades, but higher strength steels are size and shape of the finished product when compared with comparable

MCH_22
b Steel coil c Steel rolling process

Beam Breakdown Universal Edging Universal

blank mill mill mill mill

d Steel open section beams e Rolled steel open section beam process

Hollow Seamless
Heating Hot extrusion pipe
billet
Mandrel Die

f Steel hollow section beams g Hot extruded steel seamless pipe production

Processing

cold rolled products. Hot rolled products, such as steel bars, are used to Production of tubes and pipes
make large-scale structural components such as I-beams, box sections There are two primary types of steel pipe (f); one is seamless and
and tubes. These are used in situations where precise shapes and the other has a single welded seam along its length. Each type has a
tolerances are not a primary requirement. different use. Seamless tubes are typically more light in weight, and have
thinner walls. Seamed tubes are heavier and more rigid, with greater
Cold rolled process consistency in their physical properties, and are typically straighter.
Cold rolled steel is essentially hot rolled steel that has undergone Typically, seamed tubes are used in instances where the pipe is not
further processing. The steel is processed further in cold reduction put under a high degree of stress. Characteristics of pipe size can be
mills, where the material is cooled (to room temperature) followed by varied during manufacture, such as diameter, as can the wall thickness
annealing and/or tempered rolling. This process produces steel with of the pipe also be varied during production. The specific steel grade
closer dimensional tolerances and a wider range of surface finishes used will affect the strength and flexibility of a pipe. Other controllable
than hot rolled steel. When referring to bar products, the term used characteristics include length, coating material, and finish.
is ‘cold finishing’, which usually consists of cold drawing and/or turning,
grinding and polishing. This process results in a higher-strength material Extrusion
with four main advantages over hot rolled steel: cold drawing increases It is possible to extrude steel to form complex sections (g), but this
the yield and tensile strengths, often eliminating further costly thermal currently has only limited applications due to the high pressure
treatments; turning removes surface imperfections; grinding narrows needed to extrude the material. Aluminium is a much softer material,
the original size tolerance range; polishing improves surface finish. making it easier to extrude. Even when aluminium is alloyed with
other materials such as bronze, the extrudable size of sections drops
All cold-formed products provide a superior surface finish to those dramatically. Extrusions in steel cannot exceed shapes that fit into a
which are hot rolled. Their application suits conditions where tolerances, circle approximately 150mm (6”) in diameter. This is too small for
surface condition, concentricity, and straightness are the major structural sections, but their smooth appearance makes them suitable
factors. Cold-worked mild steels are also used for much smaller-scale for components such as stiffeners in curtain walling, to provide a fin that
structural components such as lightweight structural framing in metal is visually more refined than an I-section or a tee. Currently, it is still far
framed housing and low-rise commercial buildings, as well as in drywall easier to roll steel sections than to extrude them.
partitioning and in backing walls to facade systems.

MCH_23
 Materials 01
Steel

a Galvanized dipping process c Fire protection coating

b Paint coating d Manufacture of curved stainless steel panels

Performance

Degradation of the material

The effects of corrosion, oxidation and degradation both change Intermediate coats are applied in order to build up the overall film
the appearance of steel and can reduce the performance of the thickness of the paint coating. Thicker coatings provide a longer life
material, even leading to its failure if maintenance is not carried out as in the service of a steel component, particularly when exposed to the
scheduled. Where steel components are coated with plastics or paint atmosphere. Intermediate coats are specially designed to enhance
coatings, steel can undergo surface discolouration, paint delamination, overall protection and, when highly pigmented, decrease permeability
solvent swelling and embrittlement of the material itself. Steel can be to oxygen and water.
attacked as a result of water-based corrosion or be oxidised at higher
temperatures. The finish coat provides the final appearance and surface resistance
of the paint system. Depending on the conditions of exposure, the paint
Protections build-up provides the first line of defence against the effects of weather,
Galvanising is a zinc coating that is corrosion-resistant, applied to the sunlight, exposure and condensation.
steel in a hot dip bath or as a flame spray (a). Galvanising occurs after
fabrication of steel components to cover all the welding and drilling. This Stripe coats are coats of paint that are applied locally to welds, fasteners
process can cause distortion of smaller steel components, so may not and external corners. Their purpose is to create an increased thickness
suit all types of fabrication. The appearance of galvanising when new of coating at edges and corners, where paint has a tendency to contract
is a mottled shiny grey, turning to a dull grey with weathering as the and thin upon drying. Paint coatings can also provide fire protection
zinc oxidizes. Its visual appearance is often not suitable for exposed through the use of intumescent paint (c).
structural steelwork or cladding in buildings, where paint coatings are
more common. Stainless steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of steel which contains between approximately
Paint coatings 11 and 25 % chromium, together with nickel in some types, giving it
Paint coatings are applied in layers, typically as follows: properties that are distinct from carbon steels; the main one being a
The first coat, the primer, is applied directly onto the cleaned steel high resistance to corrosion without the need for an additional coating.
surface (b). This coating helps to create a better surface finish in the Since the material is considerably more expensive than carbon steels,
final layer by providing a high amount of adhesion for coats applied stainless steel is most commonly used in small building components
subsequently. Primers are applied directly to steel to provide resistance and in cladding panels where durability is a primary requirement (d).
to corrosion.

MCH_24
e Mandrel tube bending machine f Curved beams

Curved beam
A
Reference surface
C

A C

Relative position of beam

surface is the same as
reference surface Twisted element Unrolled geometry

g Design of bespoke twisted beam elements h Fabrication of bespoke twisted beam elements

Applications

Standard steel beam elements Cold bending of steel sections

Sizes of standard beam and hollow sections range in depth from between Tubes, angle sections, channels, I-sections, channels and box sections
21.3mm and 1036.3mm, and in width from 21.3mm to 508mm, as can be curved by the process of cold bending. This method uses
shown in Eurocode design tables. These standard sizes vary slightly mechanical force to push a steel section against a die, forcing the
between countries as a result of the requirements of each market. The element to take the shape of the die (e). An alternative method is
length of a beam element will depend on the cross section, thickness of induction bending, which is used mainly for large section tubes. This
steel, transportation and factory limitation, but standard steel sections technique uses induction to heat up a short length of pipe quickly,
can be manufactured in lengths from 12 metres to 20 metres. resulting in minimal deformation of the profile of the curved section.

Stainless steel Specially fabricated steel components

For conditions where the environment is highly corrosive, the use of Some shapes of steel section can be difficult to achieve with conventional
stainless steel is extremely suitable, as the material is highly resistant to processing methods. Specially fabricated steel components are made
corrosion and usually requires no coatings. Stainless steels have higher using advanced computational modelling and digital fabrication tools. A
fire resistance than carbon steels. Although the material develops a recent example of the application of this method is the structural frame
thin oxide layer that protects it from further corrosion, different grades of the Beijing National Stadium, designed by architects Herzog and de
of stainless steel are available to suit the severity of exposure from Meuron. A significant challenge, from the point of view of fabrication, was
polluted urban to maritime to rural environments. When using stainless to use steel box sections for structural beams of varying cross-sectional
steel there is the risk of bimetallic corrosion at the junction of stainless shape, which also resulted in complex geometries at the junctions
steel and carbon steel when they are used together. between the structural members. The outer faces of the steel box
sections were maintained as always being parallel to the base surface,
Working with the material which resulted in twisting box sections (g), made from flat steel plate
Sections and sheets can be curved to small radii (f). Bolting and which was curved to form each box section. Consequently, all surfaces
welding are the most common methods of joining sections, sheets and of those box sections remained developable, that is to say that they
castings. Steel can also be sawn and drilled. An essential characteristic were made from flat sheet. The individual faces of the box sections were
of steelwork is that it will continue to rust if surface protection is not curved to shape, then assembled and welded together to form complex
provided. When drilling or cutting the material, the newly-exposed structural sections that could not be made by conventional means (h).
surface requires protection, which is particularly important if the
material has already been factory coated.

MCH_25
 Materials 01
Aluminium

a Aluminium products

800

Density mild steel 2700 kg/m3 (169 lb/ft3)

σ - Nominal stress (MPa)

700

Extrusion: 255 N/mm² (5.3 x 106 lbf/ft²) 600

Design strength: heat treated
Plate:185 N/mm² (3.9 x 106 lbf/ft²) 500

Design strength: fully softened Plate: 105 N/mm (2.2 x 10 lbf/ft )

² 6 ²
400

300
Young’s modulus 70 kN/mm (1.5 x 10 lbf/ft )
² 9 ²

200
Coefficient of thermal expansion 23 x 10-6 K-1 (12.8 x 10-6 OF-1)
100

Thermal conductivity 200 W/mºC (116 BTU/hr.ft.OF) 0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Specific heat capacity 880 J/kgºC (0.21 BTU/lb F) O ε - Nominal strain (%)

b Properties and data of aluminium alloys c Aluminium stress-strain graph

Overview

Aluminium is extracted from bauxite, a hard, red clay containing up • High thermal conduction (h).
to 50% aluminium oxide. Alumina, or aluminium oxide, is extracted • High electrical conduction.
from the bauxite ore. Bauxite is the most important ore of aluminium, • Poor stiffness (c)(e).
containing approximately 30–50% alumina. Pure aluminium was first • Low resistance to soft impact, but absorbs impact energy which
produced in 1825, and by the late 19th century a method was found to localises damage. Whereas a soft or low level impact, such as a
mass produce the material by the electrolysis of alumina and cryolite (a). kick, would not damage a steel panel, it will dent one in aluminium.
• A high impact, such as a car reversing into a panel, would cause
Comparison with other materials, general properties a large steel panel to buckle across its entire height and length,
For comparison with other materials, aluminium alloys have the following but one made of aluminium will again dent only around the impact
general properties (b): area.
• Lightness, weighing about a third that of steel (d). • Poor fire resistance
• High tensile strength, similar to that of steel (f)(k).
• High impact resistance.
• High corrosion resistance, but aluminium requires protective
coating in very polluted or severe atmospheric conditions. Coatings
are not applied solely for appearance.
• Thermal expansion approximately twice that of steel (g).

MCH_26
 4000
Acrylic 1200 100 60 2.5 70 0.2 1400
2000

D
Young’

Yoa
100
PVC 1400 60 45 3 50 0.19 1300
3000 50

strengths Compressive
CFRP 1850 600 1000 80 1 0.35 1170 200
1000
2000
UHPC
50 2400 150 12 70 12 1 840
0
1000 Steel
0
100
00
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone
Stone Concrete
Concrete Ceramic
Ceramic Timber
Timber
http://uni-obuda.hu/journal/Oroszlany_Nagy_Kovacs_58.pdf 0
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone
Stone Concrete
Concrete Ceramic
Ceramic Timber
Timber
http://www.new-learn.info/packages/clear/thermal/buildings/building_fabric/properties/conductivity.html
Steel Aluminium
r [kg/m³]
3 http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-solids-d_154.html
4 http://sar2.epfl.ch/JDoctorants/Posters2006/64.pdf
EStone Concrete
[kN/mm² ] Ceramic Timber
vity.html
8000 5 http://www.pvc.org/en/p/pvc-strength
E [kN/mm² ] 250 sc - st [N/mm² ]
strengths

Steel performances
7000 sc - st [N/mm² ]

modulus
250 500
200
6000
a. Durability
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

and tensile
Density

500

expansion
b. Fire resistance
Young’s modulus

5000
200 400
150
25
Compressive and tensile

4000
400

Young’s
150
3000
1400
300
100
20
300
2000

Coeficient of thermal
Compressive and tensile strengths Compressive
100 200
50
1000 15
200
0
50 100
0
10
100 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
0 0
5
ty.html d Materials
0 density comparison
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber e MaterialsSteel
Young’sAluminium
modulus comparison
Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel Aluminium EStone
[kN/mm² ]
Concrete Ceramic Timber 0
250 Steel Aluminium sStone
c - st Concrete ]
[N/mm² Ceramic Timber
strengths

sc - st [N/mm² ] 500
tensilemodulus

200 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

of thermal expansion
500
150 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ] 400
25
expansion

25 l [W/(m*K)]
Coeficient of thermalYoung’s

400 300
20
100
20
300 250
200
15
Compressive and tensile strengthsCompressive and

50

conductivity
15
200 200
100
0 10
10 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 150
0

Coeficient
100 5
50 100 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber

Thermal
0
0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 50 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel Aluminium c - st
sStone [N/mm²
Concrete ] Ceramic Timber
f Materials tensile and compressive strength comparison 0
g Materials coefficient of thermal expansion comparison
500 aStone[10^-6Concrete
* kN/mm² ]
Steel Aluminium Ceramic Timber

of thermal expansion
400 25
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
of thermal expansion

20
l [W/(m*K)]
25
300
l [W/(m*K)] 250 C [J/(kg*K)]
20
200 15
conductivity
250 2000
200
heat capacity
conductivity

15
100 10
200 1500
150
Coeficient

010 5
150 100
Thermal

Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 1000

0
Coeficient

5
100
of thermal expansion Thermal

50 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber

Specific

500
500 0
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
0 0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
25
l [W/(m*K)]
h Materials
20 thermal conductivity comparison j Materials specific heat comparison
C [J/(kg*K)]
250
Cl [J/(kg*K)]
[W/(m*K)] 2000
heatconductivity

15
250 200
capacity

2000 Ultimate tensile strength fu,

10 Alloy EN-AW Temper Thickness mm1500 0.2% proof strength fo, N/mm²
conductivity
capacity

200 150 N/mm²

1500
Coeficient

5 H14 | H24/H34 ≤6 | 3 1000 180 | 170 220

150 3004 100
Thermal

0
1000 H16 | H26/H36 ≤4|3 200 | 190 240
heat

100 50
Specific
Thermal

Steel AluminiumStone H14 | H24 Ceramic

Concrete Timber ≤ 6 | 3 500 150 | 130 170
3005
Specific

500
50 H16 | H26 ≤4 | 3 0 175 | 160 195
0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
00
H14 | H24 ≤ 25 | 12,5 Steel 120 | 110Stone
Aluminium Concrete 140
Ceramic Timber
3103
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone H16
Stone | H26 Ceramic
Concrete
Concrete Ceramic Timber
Timber ≤4 145 | 135 160
l [W/(m*K)]
O/H111 ≤50 35 C [J/(kg*K)] 100
250 5005/5005A H12 | H22/H32 ≤12.5 2000 95 | 80 125
C [J/(kg*K)]
conductivity

H14 | H24/H34 ≤12.5 120 | 110 145

Specific heat capacity

200
2000
H12 | H22/H32 ≤40 1500 160 | 130 210
150 5052
heat capacity

1500 H14 | H24/H34 ≤25 180 | 150 230

100 1000
O / H111 ≤100 80 190
Specific Thermal

1000
5049
50 H14 | H24/H34 ≤25 500 190 | 160 240
0 O/H111 ≤80 85 215
500 5454 0
Steel Aluminium Stone H14 Concrete
| H24/H34Ceramic Timber ≤25 220 | 200 270
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
0 O/H111 ≤100 80 190
5754
Steel Aluminium StoneH14 |Concrete
H24/H34Ceramic Timber ≤25 190 | 160 240
C [J/(kg*K)] ≤50 125 275
2000 O/H111
50< t ≤80 115 270
5083
Specific heat capacity

1500
H12 | H22/H32 ≤40 250 | 215 305
H14 | H24/H34 ≤25 280 | 250 340
1000 T4 / T451 ≤12,5 110 205
6061 T6 / T651 ≤12,5 240 290
500
T651 12,5< t ≤80 240 290
0 T4 / T451 ≤12,5 110 205
Steel Aluminium Stone T61/T6151
Concrete Ceramic Timber ≤12,5 205 280
T6151 12,5< t ≤100 200 275
6082
≤6 260 310
T6/T651
6< t ≤12,5 255 300
T651 12.5< t ≤100 240 295
T6 ≤12.5
7020 280 350
T651 ≤40
H14 | H24 ≤12.5 110 | 100 125
8011A
H16 | H26 ≤4 130 | 120 145
k Characteristic values for wrought aluminium alloys - sheet, strip and plate

MCH_27
 Materials 01
Aluminium
Raw materials Raw materials
Environmental
Control Centre

Alumina
Electric Coke
power Anode Centre

Casting

Molten
Aluminium
Electrolitic
cell

Slabs Sheets Extrusions T-ingots

a Aluminium production process

Production

Aluminium is made from bauxite, which is essentially an hydrated Structural use of aluminium alloys is limited by two significant
alumina, or aluminium oxide. Mined bauxite is treated chemically to disadvantages: they are more expensive to manufacture than steel and
remove impurities and obtain alumina, which is aluminium oxide. This they deform more easily under load. Aluminium alloys are more elastic
is then reduced to aluminium by electrolysis. Because aluminium has a than steel, restricting their use to components and assemblies where
very high melting point (24500C) it cannot be electrolysed on its own, this is not a constraint. Since the Young’s Modulus of aluminium is one
and so it is dissolved in molten cryolite. A high electric current is passed third that of steel, buckling is an important issue in its structural use.
through the alumina-cryolite mixture at around 10000C, and the molten The potential of this material as a full structural material in buildings
aluminium is tapped off (a). is beginning to be recognised. The Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket
Ground, London, England, is a recent notable example because of the
Aluminium alloys are either formed directly, followed by continuous full structural use of aluminium in a large-scale building frame.
casting, or are cast into solid ingots. The metal is then cast into ingots
which form the basis for producing aluminium alloys. Pure aluminium Extruded profiles
is too soft for structural use and is therefore combined with other The extrusion process starts with an aluminium billet in various lengths
metals to form alloys to increase its strength and hardness, though of up to 7 metres, supplied in a wide range of alloys (b). The billet is
reducing its ductility. Magnesium, silicon and manganese are the most pre-heated in the billet heater to around 400-5000C, but the specific
common additives. Aluminium alloys make strong, lightweight structural temperature will vary primarily in accordance with both the alloy type
components. In common with steel, aluminium is a material that can be and the required shape. The extrusion process is carried out by applying
extruded, rolled and cast into complex shapes: plates, sheets, extrusions high pressures, between 1600 and 6500 tonnes, depending on the
and castings. size of the equipment used, forcing it through a die opening shaped
with the specific cross-section required for the extrusion (c). The rate
Uses and limitations of the extrusion process can be between approximately 5 metres and
Pure aluminium and its alloys come in two broad groups: the non 80 metres per minute, depending on the type of alloy used and the
heat-treated alloys, also called fully softened alloys, whose strength is complexity of the cross-section.
produced from being cold worked, and the heat-treated alloys whose
strength is produced by heat treatment. The non heat-treated types are
generally not as strong, but have better corrosive resistance.

MCH_28
 Extrusion

Billet

Die

b Aluminium billets c Aluminium extrusion process

d Aluminium roll e Laser cutting of an aluminium sheet

f Aluminium block g Close-up of CNC milling an aluminium block

Working with the material Machining

Aluminium can be cut and drilled, riveted, bolted, screwed and glued. Aluminium alloys can be machined much more quickly than equivalent
The material can also be welded. However, welding is usually done using steel sections due to their lower hardness. The most common
the fully softened alloys, since this process can undo the work of the techniques for machining include sawing, turning, tapping, laser cutting
heat treatment in the other alloy types. Since the design strength of and computer numerical controlled (CNC) milling.
the fully softened alloys is half that of the heat-treated types, the section
sizes used in welded aluminium structures can often be similar to those Aluminium extrusions can be sawn accurately with the appropriate
of comparable steel structures, but with considerably less weight. rotating blade and rotations per minute. The choice of blade is driven
by the alloy used and the thickness of the extrusion. Aluminium can
The design strength of the heat-treated alloys, which is similar to also be easily threaded or drilled. Turning aluminium can be undertaken
the bottom end of the design strength of steel, can be exploited in with standard, special or automatic lathes and requires a high speed
extrusions, which require no welding in their manufacture. Extrusions of rotation.
can be used to form complex profiles, such as those needed in window
sections or walkway decking, and be much lighter than an equivalent Aluminium can be laser-cut (e), but the process is difficult to achieve
member in steel. The material can also be cast to form complex due to the high reflectivity of the material, which can cause the beam
shapes that are more economic in large quantities than an equivalent to go back through the lens and damage the optics of the machine. In
fabricated component. addition, molten pool, which can be highly reflective, is formed when a
laser beam strikes the surface of an aluminium sheet. Consequently,
considerable precision is needed in the use of such tools.

For milling, a block of aluminium is placed on a CNC table (f). A tool head
with rotating bit is steered by computer, following a specified path to
achieve the required shape (g). Milling bits for aluminium have larger
teeth pitches than equivalent tools for steel. Power and stability are
required to achieve a high quality surface and a high speed is required,
just like for other aluminium machining processes.

MCH_29
 Materials 01
Aluminium Anodizing

Aluminium Barrier type Cellular oxide Cellular oxide layer

surface oxide layer layer with dye deposit

Metal deposits

Aluminium oxide film

Surface of aluminium substrate

a Aluminium anodizing unit b Microstructure of anodized aluminium surface

c Examples of anodized aluminium products d Fire-retardant aluminium composite panel

Performance

Degradation of the material is carried out by immersing the aluminium in an electrolyte and applying
On exposure to the atmosphere, aluminium forms a protective coating an electrical current, creating an oxide layer integral with the underlying
of aluminium oxide. Under adverse conditions, the oxide film can break metal (b). The anodic film is porous and must be sealed. This is done
down locally, but it usually reforms to a greater thickness preventing by immersing the anodised aluminium in boiling water or steam. The
further attack. Aluminium can be exposed to the weather, in non- anodised coating can be dyed; the sealing then assists its colour-fastness.
polluted environments and away from maritime conditions, without Anodising should be carried out after welding. The process of welding
the need for additional treatment, provided the surface is maintained. would otherwise break down the anodising process at heat-affected
Over time, it loses its initial bright appearance and assumes a dull grey locations. Broken-down anodising could result in weld impurities that
sheen. Aluminium should be cleaned regularly to avoid pits forming in would impair its structural effectiveness. Aluminium’s natural finish, often
the material surface. However, one way to avoid this is to anodise or referred to as mill finish, can be worked to produce a polished, ground
paint the material with a proprietary coating. Aluminium is susceptible or brush-grained finish. Etching gives a matt and non-directional finish
to electrolytic corrosion in contact with certain materials such as with no direct reflections. Anodising generally follows these processes,
copper. Therefore direct contact with copper and copper-rich alloys, increasing durability and enhancing long-term appearance (c). Brightening
such as brass and bronze is avoided and the material should be used is not suitable for architectural alloys, which are only 99.5% aluminium
in a way that water does not flow onto it from copper. However, water because the brightening is not uniform. Chemical brightening on other
flowing from aluminium to copper or lead is not harmful. There is no alloys dissolves and flattens surface irregularities found in extruded or
corrosive action between aluminium and zinc or zinc coatings and sheet aluminium surfaces, and produces a mirror finish with a very high
galvanised surfaces. Some timber preservatives contain compounds reflectivity. It can be anodised without dulling the surface.
harmful to aluminium. Untreated timber affects the material to a much
lesser extent. Coatings
Aluminium can be coated in a wide range of colours through the use
Protections of proprietary processes. Plastic coatings provide a durable paint
Anodising: anodising produces a fine translucent film over the surface surface; polyester powder coating is one of the most common finishes.
of aluminium (a). The anodising process results in the replacement, by Plastic coatings are dip-coated, sprayed or electrophoretically deposited
electrochemical means, of the metal’s naturally formed oxide film by a underwater. The electrostatically applied finish ensures that an even
dense chemically resistant artificial film many times the thickness of its coat is built-up on the metal. These paints fade and lose their shine
natural equivalent. This film is extremely hard, gives added protection with time, though the change is slow and even. PVDF (polyvinylidene
against abrasion, and reduces the adhesion of dirt particles. Anodising di-fluoride), also called PVF2 in Europe, and powder coatings are most

MCH_30
e Aluminium extrusion f Cold rolled aluminum coil
90°
°
.0
90
3

R3
°
.0

10
90
3

R5

135.0°
°
45.0
3

R2

g Folding techniques for aluminium panels h Aluminium extrusions

commonly used. PVDF is a spray-applied finish which is highly resistant Aluminium alloys can be extruded to a very wide range of cross-sectional
to fading in sunlight, making it very suitable for external use where colour shapes of varying complexity (e). This ability provides a high level of
stability is an important consideration, such as in wall cladding. Powder control over the dimensional accuracy and the fit of assemblies, such as
coating is applied in an electrolytic process that provides a softer and aluminium window frames. Extrusions can be made as strong and light
less expensive coating than PVDF. It is not as resistant to fading in sections, making the application of extrusions particularly suitable for
sunlight, but is a harder finish and less expensive, making it suitable for framing to glazed curtain wall assemblies (h). Grooves for joints, thermal
both an economic external finish and excellent for internal use. breaks and glazing beads can be incorporated into a window frame due
to the material’s ability to be processed and to achieve complex shapes
Recycling which can fit together in a single assembly.
Aluminium is a fully recyclable material. Recycling not only retains the
scrap value of aluminium but also eliminates possible adverse effects Aluminium alloys can also be used to form cladding panels which are
on the environment of the discarted metal. Moreover, production of either flat or curved (d)(f). The ability of the material to be folded or rolled
aluminium from a recycled material requires just 5% of the energy to form profiled sheets allows the work to be conducted on site (g).
needed to produce aluminium from bauxite. Aluminium panels can be further processed either in a workshop or on
a building site, without any specialised tools.
Applications

Aluminium alloys are well suited to applications which require properties

of lightness, resistance to corrosion and structural strength. The
material is commonly used for the following applications:
• Temporary structures, like stages and pavilions, for which low
transportation costs and speed of installation are priorities.
• Structures with limited access for maintenance.
• Long-span roof structures such as space frames and geodesic
domes that are required to be light in weight.
• Structures exposed to humid and corrosive environmental
conditions.

MCH_31
 Materials 01
Copper, zinc, lead

Copper = 8900 kg/m3 (556 lb/ft3)

Density Zinc = 7000 kg/m3 (437 lb/ft3)
Lead = 11,400 kg/m3 (712 lb/ft3)
Copper = 216–355 N/mm²
(4.5 x 106 to 7.4 x 106 lbf/ft²)
Zinc = 139–216 N/mm²
Tensile strength
(2.9 x 106 to 4.5 x 106 lbf/ft²)
Lead = 15–18 N/mm²
a Natural and with patina copper cladding (3.1 x 105 to 3.8 x 105 lbf/ft²)
Copper = 112–148 kN/mm²
(2.4 x 109 to 3.1 x 109 lbf/ft²)
Zinc = 68 - 95 kN/mm² (pure)
Young’s modulus
(1.4 x 109 to 2.0 x 109 lbf/ft²)
Lead = 13–15 kN/mm²
(2.7 x 108 to 3.1 x 108 lbf/ft²)
Copper =17 x 10-6 K-1 (9.4 x 10-6 0F-1)
Zinc =23 to 40 x 10-6 K-1
Coefficient of thermal expansion
(12.8 x 10-6 to 22.2 x 10-6 0F-1)
Lead 29.5 x 10-6 K-1 (16.4 x 10-6 0F-1)
b Zinc cladding Copper = 368 W/mK (213 BTU/hr.ft.OF)
Thermal conductivity Zinc:= 115 W/mK (67 BTU/hr.ft.OF)
Lead: = 35 W/mK (20 BTU/hr.ft.OF)
Copper = 390 J/kgºC (0.093 BTU/lb OF)
Specific heat capacity Zinc = 380 J/kgºC (0.090 BTU/lb OF)
Lead = 130 J/kgºC (0.031 BTU/lb OF)

d Properties and data of copper, zinc and lead

c Lead preformed cladding panel

Overview Weathering

Copper, zinc and lead are durable, ductile metals that provide a longer All three metals have a characteristic appearance after a prolonged
design life than metals with painted finishes. Their ability to resist the period of exposure to the effects of the atmosphere. Weathering can
effects of air pollution, and the low maintenance requirement of the be uneven, so copper, zinc and lead are manufactured with different
metal surfaces, assure their use for facades and roofs of buildings pre-weathered finishes to provide the long-term appearance from the
where a longer design life is a priority. The design life is also dependent beginning of a building’s design life. For example, copper can be pre-
upon the thickness of the metal and its location within a given facade weathered to different intensities from brown to green (a). Zinc can
assembly. These metals are fully recyclable. be pre-weathered to different shades, from light grey to black (b). All
metals can be lacquered to maintain their natural appearance as seen
Their use in traditional construction has ensured that there are well- immediately after manufacture.
evolved techniques for the use of all three metals for durable weather-
tight finishes to roofs, facades, rainwater gutters and associated Production
downpipes. These metals today are manufactured to a more consistent
purity than was historically the case, ensuring a greater level of Copper, zinc and lead occur naturally as ores in which the metals are
consistent performance in use. A mix of on-site and prefabrication combined with other chemical compounds. Copper is mined from open
techniques has greatly advanced their use in recent years, with seaming pits, where it is scooped out by large excavators and transported directly
and fixing technology having greatly improved productivity. The folded or by road for processing. Zinc and lead are taken from underground
profiled sheets required for roofs and walls can be formed direcly to the mines with conventional mining techniques. Copper, zinc and lead are
required shape, on site, from metal coil directly from the factory using all obtained from their ores by a process of extraction, which varies
mobile machines. The economic nature of this mixture of site-based and according to the type of ore and its target purity. Removing the
prefabricated techniques has allowed these metals to be used on a wide other constituents of the ores is called ‘concentrating’ and is typically
range of building types. undertaken using a process of flotation. First, the ore is ground into
small particles, then water is added to the mixture together with
various chemicals, which react with metal particles and create a thick

MCH_32
 12000
250
8000

modulus
str
200

Density
10000 1200

modulus
200

and tensile
6000
1000
8000 150

Density
150 4000
800

Young’s
6000 100
Young’s 100 2000
600
4000

Compressive
50
0
400
50
2000
0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
200
0
0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP 0
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
r [kg/m³]
3 http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-solids-d_154.html Steel Copper Zinc Lead
E [kN/mm² ] Glass GRC GFRP

strengths
12000 250
strengths

E [kN/mm² ] sc - st [N/mm² ]
10000 sc - st
[N/mm² ]

modulus
200
250 1200
8000 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

tensile
expansion
1200
Density

150
1000
andmodulus

200 50
tensile

6000
1000

Young’s
800
100
150

and
4000
800 40
600

of thermal
50
Young’s

Compressive
2000
100
600 30
400
Compressive

0
400 0
50 20
200
200 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
0

Coeficient
0 10
e Materials
0 density comparison f MaterialsSteel
Young’sCopper
modulus comparison
Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
0

tensile strengths
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
E [kN/mm² ] Steel Copper c - st
Zinc
s [N/mm²
Lead ]
Glass GRC GFRP
250
strengths

1200
sc - st [N/mm² ] a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
modulus

200

expansion
1000
1200 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ] 50
expansion

150 800
tensile

50 l [W/(m*K)]

of thermal and
1000 40
Young’s

100 600
40
800 400

Compressive
30
400
and

conductivity
of thermal

50
600
30 300
200
Compressive

20
400
0
20 0

Coeficient
200 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP 10
200
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Coeficient

10

Thermal
0 0
100
0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
and tensile strengths

sc - ststrength
[N/mm² ] Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
g Materials tensile and compressive comparison 0
h Materials coefficient of thermal expansion comparison
1200
of thermal expansion
Steel Copper a
Zinc [10^-6
Lead* kN/mm²
Glass ] GRC GFRP
50
1000 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
of thermal expansion

800 40 l [W/(m*K)]
50 l [W/(m*K)] C [J/(kg*K)]
400
30
600
40 1400
400
heat conductivity
Compressive

400
Thermal conductivity

capacity

20
300
1200
30
300
200 1000
Coeficient

10
200
20
0 800
200
Thermal

Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP 6000

Coeficient

10 100
400 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Specific

100
0
2000
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
0 0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Steel Copper a
Zinc [10^-6
Lead* kN/mm²
Glass ] GRC GFRP Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
of thermal expansion

50 l [W/(m*K)]
j Materials thermal conductivity comparison k Materials specific heat comparison
C [J/(kg*K)]
40 400
l [W/(m*K)]
C [J/(kg*K)]
conductivity

1400
30
400
1400 300
heat capacity

1200
conductivity
capacity

120020 1000
300 200
1000 800
Coeficient

10
Thermal

800 600
100
200
heat

layer600
of
0 foam on top of the mixture. Up to this point, the processing of where
400it is separated upon cooling, leaving lime in the first chamber.
Specific
Thermal

the ores is Steel

400 Copper
similar for copper, Zinc
zinc andLead Glass
lead. After GRC
this point, the GFRP
further Zinc200
is0 further refined by maintaining the molten state of the material
Specific

100
200 0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
processing
00 of these three metals varies significantly. for several Steel
hours longer.
Copper
This Zinc
allows the contaminants
Lead Glass
to settleGFRP
GRC
to the
Steel
Steel Copper
Copper Zinc
Zinc Lead
Lead Glass
Glass GRC
GRC GFRP
GFRP bottom of the tank. Finally, the molten zinc is cast into ingots.
l [W/(m*K)] C [J/(kg*K)]
Copper 1400
400
After concentration, the material C [J/(kg*K)]
is put into a furnace with the Lead
Specific heat capacity

1200
conductivity

1400
300 1000
addition of silica flux. The copper concentrate and flux melt, and iron When lead has been concentrated in the flotation process, the material
heat capacity

1200 800
particles
200 combine with the flux, while sulphur combines with oxygen.
1000 is filtered
600 and ‘roasted’. The lead concentrate is further refined to
SpecificThermal

The800
remaining material, called ‘matte’, is then transferred to another
100 remove
400 the sulphur content. The concentrate then passes to a sinter
600 200
furnace
4000
called a converter, where the process is repeated. Following plant, 0where it is mixed with minerals while heated air, at a temperature
this200
stage, Steel
the copper is moulded
Copper Zinc to form
Lead electrical
Glass anodes,
GRC and each
GFRP of 1,400°CSteel
(2,550°F), is blown
Copper through
Zinc the grate.
Lead Glass Then the oreGFRP
GRC fuses
0
of these is then
Steel placed in
Copper a separate
Zinc tank
Lead with a copper
Glass cathode
GRC GFRPthe
at into a brittle material called sinter. The lead concentrate is then passed
opposite end. Acidic copper sulphate solution is used as an electrical
C [J/(kg*K)] through a blast furnace. The coke burns at 2,200°F (1,200°C) and
1400
conductor. An electrical current is applied to each tank, and the pure produces carbon monoxide, which reacts with the material resulting in
Specific heat capacity

1200
copper
1000 is stripped from the anode and deposited on the cathode. It molten lead.
takes
800up to fifteen days to produce pure copper. The material is now
600
melted
400
and cast into ingots, cakes, billets, or rods. To refine the bullion, it is kept in a ‘drossing kettle’ at a temperature
200 just above its melting point, about 330°C (626°F). At this temperature,
Zinc 0 impurities rise to the top of the kettle and form a scum which is skimmed
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
After flotation, zinc is filtered and mixed with lime, then put into a furnace off. When the lead has been sufficiently refined, it is cooled and cast into
where it is fused with other minerals, then converted to zinc oxide. The blocks, which can then be formed into the required elements (c).
material is then smelted, a process of melting the zinc oxide and adding
molten lead, which dissolves the zinc and carries it to another chamber

MCH_33
 Materials 01
Copper, zinc, lead
Copper
Coil Thickness 1.50-
0.40 0.5 0.6-0.7 0.8 0.9 1
(mm) 3.00
Min. thickness for
Typical Usually for
Most common self-supporting
roofing curtain
application and for fully
grade walling
supported

a Copper coil b Data according to BS EN 1172: 2011/BS EN 14782: 2006/ BS EN 14783: 2013

Zinc
Coil Thickness
0.60 0.65 0.7 0.8 1.00 1.20 1.50
(mm)
Min. thickness
Minimum Minimum
for self-
Most common recommended recommended
supporting
application for standing for batten
and for fully
seam system system
supported

c Zinc coil d Data according to BS EN 501: 1994/BS EN 14782: 2006/ BS EN 14783: 2013

Lead
Roll Thickness 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.25
(mm) Green Yellow Blue Red Black White Orange

Flat Roofing,
Pitched Flat Roofing, Flat Roofing, Flat Roofing,
Most common
roofing, Pitched Pitched Pitched
application Vertical roofing roofing roofing
cladding

e Lead Rolls f Data according to BS EN 12588: 2006

Performance

Copper under load. Zinc is a durable material, although it is more brittle than
Copper is strong in tension, tough and ductile, but is not as malleable copper. It is manufactured as a white-coloured metal (c), but when
as lead. The material has a shiny red/yellow colour when new (a), slowly exposed to the atmosphere a carbonate is slowly formed which
developing a protective sulphate layer on its surface when exposed to produces a protective coating that is grey-white in colour. The material
the atmosphere. This patina has a characteristic shade of green which has a linear thermal expansion that is similar to lead and higher than
has a fairly consistent colour and texture. Copper is available with a copper. Zinc can be cut, drilled, nailed, welded and soldered with hand
pre-weathered, or pre-patinated finish which is chemically induced. This power tools, making it reasonably versatile for use on site. Its rigidity
finish varies slightly from naturally weathered cladding. Well-maintained makes it well suited to standing seam joints (d). Well-maintained zinc
copper cladding which has oxidised atmospherically will last from thirty cladding can last for between thirty and fifty years. Zinc is liable to attack
to fifty years. There is a variety of copper types available, each of which from copper alloys, so that rainwater running off copper should be
is suitable for a particular task (b). For instance, deoxidised copper avoided. Apart from its use in alloys, zinc is used as a protective coating
is suitable for welding, while fire-refined tough-pitch copper, with its to steel, applied through a process of galvanising and sherardising.
tougher resistance to corrosion, is used for cladding. Otherwise, both
have similar properties. Copper forms a high proportion of metal in Lead
alloys such as bronze, which is primarily a mixture of copper and tin. Lead is an extremely durable, ductile and malleable material, making
Brass is primarily a mixture of copper and zinc, and aluminium bronze is it extremely useful for roof coverings and flashings in traditional roof
primarily a mixture of copper and aluminium. Copper can be cut, drilled, construction (e)(f). However, while its relative softness allows lead to be
nailed, welded and soldered with hand power tools, making it versatile formed into complex shapes, its lack of rigidity means that a supporting
for site-intensive work. When used as cladding, joints between sheets material must be provided beneath it. Timber boards are most
are made by folding the edges together. This method takes advantage commonly used for this. Lead has low resistance to creep. On exposure
of the fact that copper can be bent along an edge fairly easily, but is rigid to the atmosphere, a protective coating of lead carbonate is slowly
enough to remain folded. formed on its surface. This gives weathered lead a dull grey appearance.
Lead is a poisonous material, leading to increased awareness of the
Zinc dangers of water run off from lead cladding reaching the water supply.
Zinc sheet for cladding is made from either commercial zinc or from Lead can be cut, drilled, nailed, welded in a process called leadburning,
an alloy of zinc with small amounts of copper and titanium added. The and soldered with hand power tools. Due to its lack of rigidity, lead sheet
properties of the two types are similar, but zinc alloy has better tensile is most commonly jointed by dressing it over rounded timber battens
strength and resistance to creep, which is long-term plastic deformation or rolls.

MCH_34
 Steel bracket

Plywood
backing panel

g Preformed lead panel

Cladding

Cladding
Membrane
Membrane
Battens

Plywood Plywood Top hat

h Flat lock panels system k Batten system

Cladding
Cladding
Membrane

Plywood Top hat Top hat

j Standing seams panels system l Interlocking panels system

Applications

All three metals have a characteristic appearance after a prolonged Standing seam joints
period of exposure to the effects of the atmosphere. Weathering can Metal sheet is folded outwards at the edges of the sheet, where the
be uneven, so copper, zinc and lead are manufactured with different sheets meet. The folded edges are lapped over one another to form a
pre-weathered finishes to provide a long-term appearance from the sealed joint between the sheets (j). Although traditional in its origin, the
beginning of a building’s design life. For example, zinc can be pre- technique of the standing seam joint is used on large-scale projects,
weathered to different shades, from light grey to black. Copper can where profiling machines and seaming machines are used to form the
be pre-weathered to different intensities from brown to green. All sheet on site, then to seal the joints between the sheets when they have
metals can be lacquered to maintain their natural appearance as seen been installed. The use of these machines allows large areas of roof to
immediately after manufacture. be enclosed quickly and economically.

The ductile nature of copper, zinc and lead allows them to be folded Batten joints
with relative ease to allow individual metal sheets, or rolls, to be cut and This is a traditional jointing technique in which continuous timber
joined together, to form folded joints (g). The durable nature of these sections, called battens, typically in the order of 25mm x 25mm, are
three metals, combined with the oxidising layer that produces their used to form the profile of the joint between metal sheets (k). The
individual characteristic appearance, allows the materials to be used as timber sections are held in place by clips, secured to the supporting
weather-resistant layers. Consequently, all three metals have long been structure or substrate onto which the metal sheet is laid. The edges of
used as coverings to roofs. In recent years, the visual quality of their the metal sheet are lapped are folded over the timber battens to form
natural finishes have led to their use in facades, as alternatives to the a watertight joint.
paint-based coatings of steel or aluminium sheet. The most common
methods common to copper, zinc and lead are described here: standing Interlocking panels
seam joints, batten joints, flat lock panels and intrerlocking panels. Metal sheets are formed at their edge to form a projecting ‘male’
edge on one side, and a recessed ‘female’ joint on the other side of
Flat lock panels the sheet (l). A male joint is fitted to a corresponding female joint. This
This joint is used where rainwater is expected to run over the joint in a joint is formed on all four sides of each metal sheet, but the joint cannot
downward direction without the risk of water building up on the surface, be considered to be fully water tight. The technique is used mainly on
which makes it suitable for facades and for areas of roof which are building facades to form shadow gap joints that provide a corresponding
nearly vertical. The flat lock is like a standing seam joint, but with the visual sharpness.
upstand folded down to allow rainwater to run freely across the joint (h).

MCH_35
 Materials 01
Stone

b Marble wall feature, Citco gallery, Zaha Hadid Architects

Natural stone: 2200 to 3000 kg/m3

Density (137 to 187 lb/ft3) wet
Cast stone: 2100 kg/m3 (131 lb/ft3)
Granite = 30 - 75 N/mm²
(6.3 x 105 to 1.5 x 106 lbf/ft²)
Characteristic compressive strength
Sandstone = 10 - 30 N/mm²
(2.1 x 105 to 6.3 x 105 lbf/ft²)
6.9 N/mm² to 21N/mm²
Young’s modulus
(144 x 106 to 439 x 106 lbf/ft²)
Coefficient of thermal expansion 7.9 x 10-6 K-1 (4.4 x 10-6 OF-1)

Thermal conductivity 1.7- 4.0 W/mºC (0.98 - 2.3 BTU/hr.ft.OF)

Specific heat capacity 840 J/kgºC (0.19 BTU/lb OF)

a Marble milling with KUKA robot c Properties and data of aluminium alloys

Overview

Stone is a natural material which is generally durable, allowing it to be most veined and least veined stone acceptable. As stone is a naturally
used for conditions where low maintenance is a high priority, such as occurring material, the properties are not as controlled as man-made
paving, and facades which might suffer accidental damage. Natural materials such as steel. Stone from a particular quarry is usually tested
stone can be cut to almost any shape (a), in sizes up to a maximum before sale in order that its physical and mechanical properties are
of around 1.5 metres x 1.5 metres, depending on stone type. Stones known. When stone is used in structural applications, the material
are used primarily as finishes for floors and walls, both externally and undergoes rigorous testing to determine its performance in the
internally (b). Most stones can be recycled easily for other uses within intended application.
building construction.
Uses and limitations
Comparison with other materials; general properties Stone is used in two essential applications: where it is supported on a
Natural stone has the following properties (c) common to most types: continuous substrate, as in paving, and secondly where it is point-fixed
• A heavy material, weighing as much as reinforced concrete (d). to a backing wall, as in its use as a facing material in a facade. When
• High compressive strength (f). Natural stone is a brittle material the material is point-fixed, its ability to span between fixings becomes
that is strong in compression but is weak in tension. an essential physical property, measured mainly by its flexural strength.
• Low tensile strength.
• Brittle, but high impact resistance improving with thickness. Performance

Reconstituted stone has the following properties: Natural stone is a brittle material that is strong in compression but is weak
• A heavy material, weighing as much as reinforced concrete. in tension. It is used mostly for wall facings and pavings, although the high
• High tensile and compressive strength. unit cost means that it is rarely used in a traditional loadbearing capacity.
• High impact resistance. Most stone has the strength and durability of block and brickwork. The
• Susceptible to shrinkage like concrete. most widely used types are granite, limestone, sandstone, marble and
slate (k). Igneous rocks, such as granite, are formed directly from molten
Production magma. Sedimentary rocks, such as limestone and sandstone, are made
up from the eroded elements of earlier rocks laid down in beds near
Stone is cut or hewn from large blocks which have been cut, blasted or the earth’s surface, and are often composed of loose material bound
split from the bedrock. Being a natural material, the appearance and together by cement-like materials. Metamorphic rocks, such as slate
durability of stone, even from the same block, can vary enormously. To and marble, are igneous or sedimentary rocks which have undergone a
control quality, it is sometimes best to select cut stone at the quarry. chemical transformation due to high temperature and pressure.
Since no two cuts produce the same appearance, when defining the
required quality it is advisable to define a limited band between the

MCH_36
 4000
Acrylic 1200 100 60 2.5 70 0.2 1400
2000

D
Young’

Yoa
100
PVC 1400 60 45 3 50 0.19 1300
3000 50

strengths Compressive
CFRP 1850 600 1000 80 1 0.35 1170 200
1000
2000
UHPC
50 2400 150 12 70 12 1 840
0
1000 Steel
0
100
00
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone
Stone Concrete
Concrete Ceramic
Ceramic Timber
Timber
http://uni-obuda.hu/journal/Oroszlany_Nagy_Kovacs_58.pdf 0
Steel
Steel Aluminium
Aluminium Stone
Stone Concrete
Concrete Ceramic
Ceramic Timber
Timber
http://www.new-learn.info/packages/clear/thermal/buildings/building_fabric/properties/conductivity.html
Steel Aluminium
r [kg/m³]
3 http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-solids-d_154.html
4 http://sar2.epfl.ch/JDoctorants/Posters2006/64.pdf
EStone Concrete
[kN/mm² ] Ceramic Timber
vity.html
8000 5 http://www.pvc.org/en/p/pvc-strength
E [kN/mm² ] 250 sc - st [N/mm² ]
strengths

Steel performances
7000 sc - st [N/mm² ]

modulus
250 500
200
6000
a. Durability
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

and tensile
Density

500

expansion
b. Fire resistance
Young’s modulus

5000
200 400
150
25
Compressive and tensile

4000
400

Young’s
150
3000
1400
300
100
20
300
2000

Coeficient of thermal
Compressive and tensile strengths Compressive
100 200
50
1000 15
200
0
50 100
0
10
100 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
0 0
5
ty.html d Materials
0 density comparison
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber e MaterialsSteel
Young’sAluminium
modulus comparison
Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel Aluminium EStone
[kN/mm² ]
Concrete Ceramic Timber 0
250 Steel Aluminium sStone
c - st Concrete ]
[N/mm² Ceramic Timber
strengths

sc - st [N/mm² ] 500
tensilemodulus

200 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

of thermal expansion
500
150 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ] 400
25
expansion

25 l [W/(m*K)]
Coeficient of thermalYoung’s

400 300
20
100
20
300 250
200
15
Compressive and tensile strengthsCompressive and

50

conductivity
15
200 200
100
0 10
10 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 150
0

Coeficient
100 5
50 100 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber

Thermal
0
0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 50 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel Aluminium c - st
sStone [N/mm²
Concrete ] Ceramic Timber
f Materials tensile and compressive strength comparison 0
g Materials coefficient of thermal expansion comparison
500 aStone[10^-6Concrete
* kN/mm² ]
Steel Aluminium Ceramic Timber

of thermal expansion
400 25
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
of thermal expansion

20
l [W/(m*K)]
25
300
l [W/(m*K)] 250 C [J/(kg*K)]
20
200 15
conductivity
250 2000
200
heat capacity
conductivity

15
100 10
200 1500
150
Coeficient

010 5
150 100
Thermal

Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 1000

0
Coeficient

5
100
of thermal expansion Thermal

50 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber

Specific

500
500 0
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
0 0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
25
l [W/(m*K)]
h Materials
20 thermal conductivity comparison j Materials specific heat comparison
C [J/(kg*K)]
250
Cl [J/(kg*K)]
[W/(m*K)] 2000
heatconductivity

15
250 200
capacity

2000
10
conductivity

1500
capacity

200 150
1500 Class Hardness Colour Texture Main uses
Coeficient

5
150 100
1000
Thermal

0
1000
heat

100 Fairly hard if well Light buff to light chocolate Granular, with sand grains
50
Specific
Thermal

Sandstone
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber 500 General, walls, buildings
cemented or brick red visible
Specific

500
50 0
0 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
00 Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
Steel AluminiumFairly soft,
Stone easily
Concrete Ceramic
Ceramic Timber Fine to crystalline, sometimes
Limestone
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete White, light gray or light buff
Timber All building uses
lscratched
[W/(m*K)] with fossils
C [J/(kg*K)]
250
2000
C [J/(kg*K)] Various - white to black,
conductivity

Slightly harder than Finely granular to coarsely Usually decorative, non-

Specific heat capacity

200
2000 Marble often pinkish, blue-grey or 1500
150 limestone crystalline structural
olive green
heat capacity

1500 1000
100
Specific Thermal

From very light grey to grey, Coarsely crystalline,

50 Granite
1000 Harder than marble 500 Structural and cladding
sometimes pink sometimes fine grained
0
500 0
Steel Aluminium Stone
About as hardConcrete
as Ceramic Timber
Coarsely
Steel crystalline,
Aluminium Stone Concrete
Dark
0 igneous rock Grey, dark green to black Structural and Ceramic
cladding Timber
granite sometimes fine grained
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic Timber
C [J/(kg*K)]
2000 About as hard as Fine grained, might have
Lavas Various, pink, purple, black Foundation and building stone
granite pores
Specific heat capacity

1500

1000 Quartzite Variable, white, buff, red or

Very hard Dense, glassy Building stone
dark brown
500

0 Grey, dark brown, or brick

Slate Softer than granite Finely crystalline Roofing and paving tiles
Steel Aluminium Stone Concrete Ceramic red
Timber

About as hard as Grey, sometimes with pink Coarsely crystalline, Building stone, sometimes
Gneiss
granite or white bands sometimes fine grained decorative

k Properties of stones most commonly used in construction

MCH_37
 Materials 01
Stone

a Stone quarry c Storing of stone slabs

b Stone cutting d Stone block cutting with wirecutter

Granite, within the building industry, refers to coarse-grained igneous limestone, such as different minerals, are incorporated into the rock
rocks. It has a wide range of colours, and is extremely hardwearing. and appear as bands or as discrete inclusions scattered through the
Most granites are grey or pink, with mixtures of white/grey and pink/ calcite mix. No true marble shows fossils. Veined marbles are the result
grey depending upon their geographical source. of minerals deposited from solutions penetrating cracks and fissures.
Some marbles contain fragments of earlier crushed rocks. A wide
Limestone is made up from rock material bound together by calcium range of colours and textures may be found. The presence of iron gives
carbonate, in the form of the mineral calcite. Many limestones contain a rise to shades of yellow, brown and red as a result of oxidation.
proportion of the mineral dolomite. The colour is generally light, ranging Slate is a crystalline rock produced by dynamic metamorphism of clays
from near white through to brown and grey. Chemical impurities can and shales, causing it to be orientated along a single grain or ‘slaty
cause a darkening of the colour. Limestones vary in texture and can cleavage’ which allows the rock to be split into sheets. It is used mainly
range from a sand-textured and coarse material to one that is so fine- for roof slates and for durable surface finishes such as floors. The
grained as to lack visible particles. Limestones such as Portland Stone colour of slate varies from grey to green to black to red.
(Indiana Limestone in the USA) are strong and durable.
Working with the material
Most sandstones consist mainly of quartz grains cemented together Stones are extracted typically by quarrying from ground level downwards
by mineral solutions. Calcareous, dolomitic, ferruginous and siliceous (a). Stone is removed by drilling and splitting using diamond saws or
cements are common. Small amounts of other minerals, often iron iron wedges, extracting the material as blocks (b). The blocks are then
compounds, give the stone its colour. Sandstones vary in colour from cut into slabs, then cut further to the sizes required (c). The work is
dull crimson to pink or green/brown mixtures to blue/grey. Sandstones often slow and can yield unexpected visual results in the slabs which are
vary enormously in durability from soft, easy-to-work types with low cut (d). Machines are used to cut stones to specific shapes, with water
strength and high porosity, to relatively durable types with strengths jet cutting techniques being used for complex shapes, such as that
approaching those of granites, with lower porosity. used for curved paving. Stone can be finished to provide very diffferent
finishes, from flamed to matt honed, to polished. Polishing does not
Marble is a metamorphic rock formed by the recrystallisation of change the structure or weathering of stone and is typically applied
limestone or dolomite through a combination of heat and pressure. where stone is used as a flooring material. Additional finishes include
The crystalline structure is seen in a fractured surface, which gives it a etching and needle gunning, but stone used externally usually has no
sparkling appearance. During metamorphism, impurities in the original additional treatment after being cut to size (e). Metal fixings in the

MCH_38
 Quarry

Crushed
Raw blocks stone

Crushed
stone

Untrimmed Trimmed Slabs Aggregate

blocks blocks
e Processing of stone

form of brackets and dowels are used where the mortar joints do not areas of hard landscaping, roads and curbs to roads. The finish for
provide sufficient stability for lintels and copings. These fixings are used stone paving is generally made to provide sufficient slip resistance
extensively in stone cladding panels where the material is supported by to ensure that users can walk without slipping, even when wet from
a structural frame. rain. For external use, a rough finish is chosen, typically, in order to
achieve the non-slip surface needed during periods of wet weather. In
Reconstituted stone contrast, many interior applications of floor paving choose a smooth
Reconstituted stone, also referred to as cast or ‘reconstructed’ stone, is finish, primarily for ease of cleaning. Some common stone finishes are:
made from cement and crushed stone that is cast in a mould. It is used flaming, sandblasted finish, brushing, honed finishing, polished, sawing,
either as a structural material or as a facing to a concrete component. terma effect finish and satin finish.
Steel reinforcement is used if the casting has a structural function.
The use of digital tools for stone processing
Applications Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona is a high-profile example of the use
of digial cutting tools in the production of stone blocks. Computational
Cladding design and building information modelling (BIM) were used to achieve
Stone facade panels are fixed with metal fixings, typically as brackets the required complex geometry of stone elements. Loadbearing
and dowels with open joints between panels. Sealed joints are still stone blocks were carved with the use of cutting tools with multi-axis
used to provide the more ‘traditional’ appearance associated with robotic arms that have a computer-controlled ability to undertake
loadbearing stone. These fixings are secured to a continuous substrate cutting, milling and polishing tools. Significant advances in stone cutting
or metal frame. The size of stone panels is limited to approximately technology were experienced during both the design and construction
1.0 metre x 1.5 metres, depending on stone type. Even though stone of the project as a result of surface modelling and solid modelling digital
is considered to weather well, some types of stone can be adversely design tools. Stone pieces were cut to provide a set of 3D forms that
affected by weathering due to exfoliation as a result of a freeze/thaw would fit together as a ‘kit of parts’ able to take into account the gap for
cycle, pollution and salts. mortar jointing while maintaining the overall geometric forms required
for the project.
Flooring
Because of its high durability, stone is ideal for exterior applications.
Some of the most common exterior uses of stone include paving for

MCH_39
 Materials 01
Glass

a Architectural glass products

40

Density 2500 kg/m3 (156 lb/ft3)

σ - Nominal stress (MPa)

Tensile strength 45 N/mm² (9.4 x 105 lbf/ft²) 30

130–250 N/mm ²
Compressive strength
(2.7 x 106 to 5.2 x 106 lbf/ft²)
20

Young’s modulus 70 kN/mm² (1.4 x 109 lbf/ft²)

Coefficient of thermal expansion 9 x 10–6 K–1 (5 x 10-6 F-1) 10

Thermal conductivity 1.1 W/m C (0.64 BTU/hr.ft. F)

º O

Specific heat capacity 840 J/kgºC (0.20 BTU/lb OF) 0.01 0.03 0.05 0.10
ε - Nominal strain (%)
b Properties and data of float glass c Glass stress-strain graph

Overview
Properties
An essential use of glass in buildings is in the double-glazed units of glazed The characteristics common to different glass types are:
facades and curtain wall (a). With the increasing importance of thermal • Variable tensile strength.
insulation and the need for a marked reduction in energy consumed to • Prone to fracture resulting from tiny cracks or imperfections.
temper the internal environment of buildings, the use of single glazing • Variable impact resistance.
with thin supporting frames without thermal breaks is no longer used • Non-corrosive.
in most new buildings except where, for example, the spaces enclosed • Non-combustible.
by the glass are considered to be external and serve only as canopies, • High heat conduction (b).
or in the outer screens to double facades. An exception to this principle • Low thermal expansion.
is glazed walls in very temperate climates, where neither heating nor
mechanical cooling is needed during the year. Glass is an elastic material: it does not exhibit permanent
deformation until breakage (c). However the material is fragile, and
will fail suddenly if subjected to very high stresses. When glass is
deflected, it has one face in compression and the other in tension.
Whilst the resistance of glass to compressive stress is extremely
high, its resistance to tensile stress is significantly lower (f). The
resistance to breakage on deflection is of the order of 40 MPa for
annealed glass and 120 – 200 MPa for toughened glass, depending
on thickness, edgework, holes and notches (k).

MCH_40
 100
2000

Young’D
600

You
100

a
4000

Compressive
50
0
400
50
2000
0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
200
0
0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP 0
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
r [kg/m³]
3 http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-solids-d_154.html Steel Copper Zinc Lead
E [kN/mm² ] Glass GRC GFRP

strengths
12000 250
strengths

E [kN/mm² ] sc - st [N/mm² ]
10000 sc - st
[N/mm² ]

modulus
200
250 1200
8000 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]

tensile
expansion
1200
Density

150
1000
andmodulus

200 50
tensile

6000
1000

Young’s
800
100
150

and
4000
800 40
600

of thermal
50
Young’s

Compressive
2000
100
600 30
400
Compressive

0
400 0
50 20
200
200 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
0

Coeficient
0 10
d Materials
0 density
Steel
comparison
Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
e MaterialsSteel
Young’sCopper
modulus comparison
Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
0

tensile strengths
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
E [kN/mm² ] Steel Copper c - st
Zinc
s [N/mm²
Lead ]
Glass GRC GFRP
250
strengths

1200
sc - st [N/mm² ] a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
modulus

200

expansion
1000
1200 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ] 50
expansion

150 800
tensile

50 l [W/(m*K)]

of thermal and
1000 40
Young’s

100 600
40
800 400

Compressive
30
400
and

conductivity
of thermal

50
600
30 300
200
Compressive

20
400
0
20 0

Coeficient
200 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP 10
200
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Coeficient

10

Thermal
0 0
100
0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
and tensile strengths

Steel Copper
sc - ststrength
[N/mm² Zinc
] Lead Glass GRC GFRP
f Materials tensile and compressive comparison 0
g Materials coefficient of thermal expansion comparison
a [10^-6
Lead* kN/mm² ] GRC

of thermal expansion
1200 Steel Copper Zinc Glass GFRP
50
1000 a [10^-6 * kN/mm² ]
of thermal expansion

800 40 l [W/(m*K)]
50 l [W/(m*K)] C [J/(kg*K)]
400
30
600
40 1400
400
heat conductivity
Compressive

400
Thermal conductivity

capacity

20
300
1200
30
300
200 1000
Coeficient

10
200
20
0 800
200
Thermal

Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP 6000

Coeficient

10 100
400 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Specific

100
0
2000
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
0 0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Steel Copper a
Zinc [10^-6
Lead* kN/mm²
Glass ] GRC GFRP Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
of thermal expansion

50 l [W/(m*K)]
h Materials thermal conductivity comparison j Materials specific heat comparison
C [J/(kg*K)]
40 400
l [W/(m*K)]
C [J/(kg*K)]
conductivity

1400
30
400
1400 300
heat capacity

1200
conductivity
capacity

1200
20 1000
300 200
1000 800 type
Glass
Coeficient

10
Thermal

800 600
100
200
heat

6000 400
Specific
Thermal

400 Steel Copper Fully

Zinc Toughened
Lead Glass
Glass GRC GFRP Heat Strengthened Glass Annealed Glass
Specific

100 2000
200 0 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Location
00 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
Steel
Steel Copper
Copper frh Zinc
(MPa)
Zinc Lead
Lead Glassγmv GRC
Glass GRC GFRP
GFRP frh (MPa) γmv frh (MPa) γmv
l [W/(m*K)] C [J/(kg*K)]
400 1400
C [J/(kg*K)]
Specific heat capacity

1200
conductivity

1400
300 1000
Far field surface 90 1.2 40 1.2 45b 1.8b
heat capacity

1200 800
200
1000 600
SpecificThermal

800 400
100
600 200
4000 0
200 Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
0 Edge 67.5d 1.2 30d 1.2 21c 1.8
Steel Copper Zinc Lead Glass GRC GFRP
C [J/(kg*K)]
1400
Specific heat capacity

1200
1000
Hole 58.5e 1.2 26e 1.2 21c 1.8
800
600
400
a
frk200
for tf =5s
0
b
frk/ γmv =Steel
45/1.8Copper
corresponds
Zinc
to Pf =1/2000
Lead
for new GRC
Glass
or uniformly
GFRP
weathered glass. A larger value of γmv should be used for naturally weathered glass
and a lower value of frk.
c
frk /γmv = 21/1.8 corresponds to ground glass edges with flaws ≤ 1 mm long and ≤ 0.5mm deep. For highly polished glass or float glass, higher / lower
values should be used respectively.
d
corresponding to 75% of far-field surface stress by meeting edge distance recommendations in EN12150:1.
e
corresponding to 65% of far-field surface stress by meeting edge distance recommendations in EN12150:1.

k Characteristic values of toughened and annealed glass and corresponding material partial factors for ultimate limit state

MCH_41
 Materials 01
Glass
Float Annealing Cutting Float glass

Bath of molten tin

Moulding Annealing Cooling Container glass
Oven

Molten
glass Annealing Cutting Pipe glass
Extruding

Glass fibre
Bushing Winding Weaving

a Glass production process

Production

The manufacture of float glass is the first stage of production. Float Glass curving
glass is made by pouring molten glass onto a bath of molten tin. The The curving of glass has undergone some development, at least in the
glass floats on top and is drawn off as it solidifies (a). The material is quality of production, in recent years (b). Specialist companies around
available in thicknesses ranging from 2mm to 25mm (1/8in to 1in). Europe now offer single-curved glass panels in both tempered and
Most float glass has a green tint caused by small amounts of iron oxide laminated glass (c). Some companies around the world will now provide
in the glass. Adding different oxides to the mix during the manufacturing double-curved panels. The ability of glass to be curved, coated and
stage can alter the tint of the glass. tempered is making it more of a sculptural material again (d), following
the tradition of the Guimard Metro Entrances.
Glass is manufactured in sheets of float glass approximately 6000mm
x 3000mm, which is typically much larger than can be used as single Material selection
sheets in buildings. Some glass manufacturers are able to temper and Heat-soaked glass is made by reheating float glass then cooling it quickly,
laminate glass at this size, providing more opportunities for designers which puts the surface of the glass into compression and removes
to use large glazed panels in facades. However, since most glazing is impurities such as nickel sulphide. When broken, fully toughened glass
made in double-glazed units, glass panels do not often achieve these disintegrates into tiny, comparatively harmless pieces. Its strength,
sizes, primarily due to issues of deflection under wind load and the measured in terms of impact resistance, is up to five times that of float
dead weight of the glass. A 3000mm wide double-glazed unit, storey glass. The toughening process can produce minor distortions in the
height, weighs around 650kg, making it difficult to lift into place using glass, usually caused by roller marks. Heat-soaked glass is a partially
conventional lifting systems for glazed units and even more difficult to toughened glass for use where full toughening is not required, or as part
consider moving it around by hand. Double-glazed units of half their size of a laminated glass construction.
can be difficult to manhandle on site. In addition to the weight of glass,
its size is an important consideration when designing with the material. Laminated glass is made by bonding two or more sheets of glass together
The six-metre by three-metre sheets, called ‘jumbo’ sheets, are required with a film of plastic in between, called the interlayer. The interlayer can
to be cut economically to avoid waste. This makes glass economical for be clear or translucent, and is available in a wide range of colours to
the 1500mm wide panels preferred in office buildings, but does not create effects of colour in the glass that are translucent in a way which
restrict their cutting to rectilinear panels. Triangular panels can also be is different from the screen printing of glass. When broken, laminated
economical if cut without significant waste, as can other shapes which glass stays together in a single piece due to this bonding between the
fit the jumbo sheet format. layers. This makes it very useful for glazed roofs and for glazed screens
which are set in front of glazed facades. However, after the initial impact,

MCH_42
 Heating Curving Fast cooling

b Glass curving process

Curved Tempered Tempered laminated

tempered laminated double glazing
glass glass

c Curved glass assemblies

d Curved glass e Curved glass

laminated glass will eventually fall away as dangerous fragments of glass, be mounted in double- and triple-glazed units to provide greater thermal
so it is required to be replaced as soon as possible, with the floor area insulation and sound insulation than is achieved by an equivalent single
beneath the broken panels typically being secured to avoid the risk of sheet of glass. An insulated unit can be a mix of float, laminated or other
injury to those below. Combining several laminates together in one sheet glasses. To improve thermal performance, the air gap between the
can make anti-vandal and even bullet-resistant glass. layers can be evacuated to create a vacuum or be replaced with a low
conductivity gas such as argon. The maximum size of double-glazed units
Wired glass is made by sandwiching a steel wire mesh between two is determined by the maximum sizes of glass types used. However, the
layers of glass, which are then rolled flat. The wire holds the glass size of unit is usually determined by windloading rather than maximum
together for a period of time during a fire and so prevents the passage glass sizes.
of smoke from one side to the other. The roughcast product can be
polished to provide a more transparent finish. Wired glasses cannot be Working with the material
toughened and are not regarded as safety products. Float, toughened and laminated glass can be curved. Flat glass is
heated and moulded to shape in either one or two directions (e). Float
Fire resistant glass is formed by glass sandwich panels containing an glass can be cut, drilled, screwed and glued. It can also be bolted using
intumescent layer. In a fire the layer of gel, or salts, reacts to the rise proprietary systems. Toughened glass cannot be cut, drilled or surface
in temperature to provide a degree of insulation against radiant heat. worked after manufacture, but laminated glass can be drilled with
specialist equipment.
Variable or switchable transmission glass is a new form of treated
glass. Though expensive, it aims to reduce internal heat loss from inside Surface and body treatments
as well as reduce solar gain. It is able to change its own thermal and Float, toughened and laminated glass can be further treated to allow
light transmission performance by means of an electrical signal. In varying levels of light transmission and thermal insulation. Sometimes
many applications, it turns from transparent to an opaque white when this is done during the manufacturing process. These treatments are
an electric signal is introduced. Applications include glazed partitions in body tinting, screen-printing, sand blasting and acid etching, coatings,
office buildings. including low-E, fritting, and curving. Body-tinted glass is produced
by small additions of metal oxides to the glass, reducing solar gain. A
Glass blocks can be solid or hollow. Solid blocks are used as paving for limited range of tints is available, including shades of green, grey, bronze
floors. The hollow type is used for walls and consists of two half-bricks and blue.
fused together to give a smooth appearance on both faces. Glass can

MCH_43
 Materials 01
Glass
Light
Incident sunlight
100%

Reflected sunlight
7% Transmitted sunlight
72%

Absorbed sunlight
20%

Energy
Incident solar energy
100% Total transmitted heat,
solar factor: 36+9=45%

Directly reflected energy Directly transmitted

30% energy: 36%
Total reflected heat:
30+25=55% Energy retransmitted
Directly rejected to the inside: 9%
to the outside
25%
a Light and energy performance of glass b Four-point bending test for fully toughened glass

Performance

Architectural glass can be described by its physical properties, as follows: Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) is the solar energy transmittance of
a complete glazing assembly including glass, frame, opaque inserts and
Visible Light Transmittance is the percentage of visible light directly external shading.
transmitted through the glass.
Shading Coefficient is the ratio of the solar energy transmitted by a
Solar Factor is the percentage of total solar energy (or heat from the particular glass combination to that transmitted by a reference glass,
sun) able to pass through the glass. usually 3 mm- or 4 mm-thick clear glass.

UV Transmission describes how much sun-damaging UV rays are Light Transmission is the percentage of light that passes from the
transmitted through the glass. The lower the value, the bigger the outside of the glass assembly to the inside. It is often expressed as
reflection of UV radiation, allowing greater protection of interior fittings a percentage with lower values representing lower levels of light
and fabrics against the effects of fading colour. transmission (a).

U-Value is used to measure internal heat loss or heat gain through The use of glass in double-glazed units allows the encapsulated inner
glazed assemblies in the external wall. The lower the U-value number, faces of the glass to have coatings applied to them to reduce their U-value
the greater the level of thermal insulation. In glazed areas of the external and to reduce solar gain. This makes double-glazed units increasingly
envelope of a building, the U-value of the construction must be evaluated energy efficient, and the introduction of argon gas into the void between
in conjunction with the potential for heat transfer through solar gain to the glass panels further increases their thermal performance. When
understand its overall thermal performance. When calculating U-values used in curtain walling, the framing is typically much poorer in thermal
of glazed assemblies, an average value is taken that accounts for the performance, bringing the U-value from a typical 1.1 W/m2K up to a
thermal transmittance of each element. An average U-value of a glazed typical 2.0W/m2K, depending on the framing type. The thermal break
assembly would include the individual values for the glass, the frame and in curtain wall systems is a structural component at present, so finding
any insulated spandrel panels that may be present. a much higher-performing thermal break is not without its difficulties.
In very cold climates, triple-glazed units are being introduced, though
G-value is the coefficient used to measure the solar energy transmittance there is still a limited condensation risk at the edges of the unit where
of glass. It is expressed as a value between 0 and 1 where low values the perimeter spacer conducts greater amounts of heat energy. A
represent low thermal transmittance. The G-value is sometimes development over the past 10 years has been in the introduction of
referred to as the Solar Factor and is expressed as a percentage (for so-called ‘super neutral’ glasses in double-glazed units which have high
example a g-value of 0.35 is equivalent to a Solar Factor of 35%). solar control performance combined with higher levels of transparency

MCH_44
c Laminated glass post-failure behaviour d Impact test of a fully toughened glass panel

than was formerly the case with so-called ‘body tinted’ glasses. Super move in relation to their supporting structure, and must be able to
neutral glasses have a colour which is visually not as strong as the older move from one panel to the next. This further encourages the panels
generation of body-tinted types, though these are still available. Super to be of the same size in order to ensure that the movements have
neutrals allow more daylight transmission than their forerunners, but a consistent ‘behaviour’ of movement across the extent of the walls.
in locations where there is considerable exposure to the effects of the Some projects, particularly for glazed roofs, have used a large number
sun an additional outer screen of solar shading panels might be used. of glass panel sizes in order to suit the structural geometry of the roof
A recent development in glass design has been the introduction of all- form, but these are typically quantified in detail by the design team in
glass structures, where glass components are connected together order to control cost. A recent alternative to the curving of glass as
by silicone bonds. The silicone serves as both adhesive and sealant, part of the manufacturing process has been to ‘cold bend’ glass sheets
providing weathertight enclosures. The scale of use to date has been on site, typically as part of a stick (site assembly based) glazing system.
modest, with single-storey conservatories, walkways, canopies and The extent to which the glass can be pushed at the corners to take up
glass floors as the primary examples of their use. Most applications a curved form across its surface is limited (b)(c), but curves in glazed
have additional mechanical fixings to overcome concerns about the walls and roofs are often modest, making the idea of cold bending more
long-term durability of all-glass structures, but this varies from project attractive to contractors.
to project. An alternative to the all-glass structure is the cladding of
conventional structures or walls in opaque rainscreens. This method Approximate and easily available maximum glass sheet sizes:
uses screen-printed glass, which is typically silicone bonded to a backing 1) Float glass. Maximum size 3180 x 6000mm (125in x 235in) for
frame then hooked onto or fixed back to, a carrier frame behind. This thicknesses from 2 .5mm to over 25mm (3/32in to 1in)
use of glass as an external rainscreen allows the void between the glass 2) Clear toughened glass. Maximum size 4200 x 2000mm (165in x
and the external face of the backing wall to have lighting, creating a glow 80in) for thicknesses from 6mm to 12mm (1/4in x 1/2in)
to an otherwise opaque or utilitarian facade, with the benefit of creating 3) Laminated glass. Maximum size 3180 x 4200mm (125in x 165in)
some lighting for the safety of users around the building. for thicknesses from 4mm to over 25mm (5/32in to 1in)
4) Rough cast wired glass. Maximum size 3700 x 1840mm (145in x
One of the main changes in the use of glass in facades and roofs is a 72in) for thickness 7mm (1/4in)
gradual move away from entirely rectilinear glass panels to those that
deviate slightly from it. These can range from parallelogram shapes to Glass is one of the easiest materials to recycle and is economically
triangular to diamond patterns in glazed facades, but all are based on viable. Enormous energy savings in glass manufacture can be made by
the need for repeatability of glass unit size in order to make the glass recycling the material.
economical to manufacture. In addition, glazed walls are required to

MCH_45
Other documents randomly have
different content
History has been extensively cultivated in Italy during the nineteenth
century; and although many histories were but popular
compendiums, or magnified party pamphlets, or mere mémoires
pour servir, others have gained for the writers honourable rank
among first-class historians. The most extensive in scale and
imposing in subject are histories by CARLO BOTTA (1766-1837) of the
American War of Independence and of Italy from 1789 to 1814. The
former is the best history of the subject out of the United States; the
latter, though taxed with partiality, is a great and invaluable work.
His continuation of Guicciardini is of less account. Botta’s style is
severe and dignified; too archaic in diction, and occasionally
deficient in flexibility, but he always writes with the consciousness of
his mission which becomes the historian. He was a determined
enemy of the romantic school. A Piedmontese by birth, he had been
concerned in the disturbances of the early revolutionary period, and
had made several campaigns in the capacity of an army surgeon.
Become temporarily a Frenchman by the annexation of Piedmont to
France, he had held office under Napoleon, whom he displeased by
his frankness. After Napoleon’s fall he lived chiefly in France. Though
always a patriot as regarded the independence of Italy, the
melancholy deceptions of revolutionary times led him at last to deem
his countrymen only fit for an enlightened despotism.
A stancher liberal was PIETRO COLLETTA (1770-1831) and an even
more eminent historian. A Neapolitan officer of engineers, he served
under Murat, but was, nevertheless, maintained in his rank by the
restored Bourbons. He was Minister of War under the Constitutional
Government of 1820, and after its overthrow was for some time
imprisoned at Brunn in Austria, where his health suffered greatly.
Upon his release he settled at Florence, and devoted himself to
writing the history of Naples from the accession of the Bourbon
dynasty in 1734 up to 1825. He was wholly inexperienced as an
author, but succeeded in imparting classic form to his work by dint of
infinite labour and careful imitation of Tacitus, for which the
imperious brevity natural to him, intensified by the habits of military
life, admirably qualified him. His work is one of the most marrowy
and sinewy of histories, and is especially valuable where he speaks
as an eye-witness. It deals fully with financial and economical as well
as political and military affairs.
Another excellent historian has been almost lost to Italy by the
circumstances attending the publication of his book. GIOVANNI
BATTISTA TESTA, an exile in England, published in 1853 his history of
the Lombard League, at Doncaster, a place better affected to the
horse of Neptune than to the olive of Pallas, and, thus producing
invita Minerva, has been almost ignored. In fact, he is an admirable
historian, lucid and delightful in his narrative, and his style is so
fashioned upon the purest models, that he might seem to have
come straight out of the sixteenth century. This might be
reprehended as affectation, but the objection, if in any respect well
founded, has no application to the excellent English version (1877),
a book which cannot be too strongly recommended to historians
desirous of acquiring the pregnant brevity so essential in this age of
multiplication of books to all who would catch and retain the ear of
posterity.
The friend and biographer of Manzoni, and imitator of his style in a
successful novel, Margherita Pusterla, CESARE CANTÙ was a long-lived
and industrious, and consequently a voluminous author. His position
is well marked as almost the only considerable writer of his time who
favoured political and ecclesiastical reaction, and the resulting
unpopularity has led him to be unjustly depreciated as a man of
letters; he is always interesting, always individual, and his principal
works, the History of Italy from 1750 to 1850 and his History of
Italian Heretics, though disfigured by party spirit, are important
books. The latter is still the standard authority on the subject,
though it will hardly be allowed to continue so.
An unique position among Italian historians is occupied by MICHELE
AMARI (1805-89), the Orientalist and national historian of Sicily.
Detesting the Neapolitan oppression of his native island, he look up
the investigation of the Sicilian Vespers, and depicted this great
event as not the consequence of a conspiracy subtly organised by
John of Procida, but as a spontaneous uprising against intolerable
oppression. The allusion did not escape the Neapolitan Government,
and Amari found it expedient to withdraw to Paris, where he studied
Arabic as a preparation for his yet more important History of Sicily
under Moslem Dominion, published between 1854 and 1872. In the
interim he had taken part in the Sicilian insurrection, and after the
final expulsion of the Bourbons, was successively Minister of Public
Instruction and professor of Arabic at Florence, continuing to write
and edit books on his favourite subjects. No historian has a higher
reputation for erudition and sagacity.
GIUSEPPE MICALI (1780-1844) devoted himself to a subject even more
difficult than Amari’s, and one incapable of an authoritative solution
of its numberless problems. His Storia degli Antichi Popoli Italiani is
nevertheless a highly important work, which exploded much error, if
it did not establish much truth.
A Neapolitan, CARLO TROYA (1784-1858) was to have written the
History of Italy in the Middle Ages from 476 to 1321, which by his
method of working might have required forty volumes, but he only
arrived at Charlemagne and only filled sixteen. The book is, as
Settembrini remarks, a thesaurus rather than a history, but cannot
be opened without encountering valuable information and judicious
criticism. Troya loved the Middle Age without idolising it; his liberal
opinions, much against his will, made the indefatigable bookworm a
Minister under one of the ephemeral Neapolitan constitutions, and
there was sense as well as wit in the reply of the restored Ferdinand
when advised to arrest him: “No! leave him in the Middle Ages!”
Three distinguished statesmen of the nineteenth century, Cesare
Balbo, Gino Capponi, and Luigi Carlo Farini, respectively wrote
histories of much worth; Balbo an abridged history of Italy, and
Capponi one of the Florentine republic, while Farini chronicled the
transactions of the States of the Church from 1814 to 1850. Farini’s
is the most important and authoritative of these works, as he has
made the field entirely his own. Balbo and Capponi, however,
patricians and men of wealth, did even more for historical studies by
their encouragement and pecuniary assistance than by their own
writings. The great Ministers, Cavour, Ricasoli, and Minghetti claim a
place in literary history as orators and pamphleteers.
For some reason difficult to understand, biography has not of late
flourished in Italy. No country is so much overrun with little
ephemeral memoirs of little ephemeral people, and there are many
extremely valuable studies of particular episodes in the lives of
celebrated men, of scientific rather than literary merit. The very
important works of Villari, Pasolini, and Solerti belong to a later
period than that now under review, which possesses only two
biographies of decided literary pretensions, both autobiographic.
So important was the public career of MASSIMO D’AZEGLIO (1798-1866),
a fervent patriot, but also a prudent statesman, for nobility of
character second to no contemporary, that his memoirs might have
been expected to have been very serious. On the contrary, they are
eminently lively and gay, in part, perhaps, from their terminating at
the beginning of 1846, before the author’s heaviest cares had come
upon him. GIUSEPPE MONTANELLI (1813-62), one of the triumvirs in the
inauspicious Tuscan revolution of 1849, though equally honest, was
entirely deficient in the ballast that steadied D’Azeglio. But his very
levity and inconstancy lend vivacity to his memoirs of the Tuscan
affairs of his time, and the paradoxes of his character, faithfully
depicted by himself, make a striking and memorable portrait. His
style is unequal, but excellent when at its best.
NICCOLÓ TOMMASEO, a Dalmatian (1802-74) forms a connecting link
between history and belles-lettres. With marvellous versatility he
essayed history, politics, moral and speculative philosophy,
biography, philology, criticism and poetry, distinguishing himself in all
without producing great or enduring work in any. His greatest
distinction, perhaps, was attained as an Italian grammarian and
lexicographer; but as a critic he wielded great authority, and
powerfully contributed to the development of literature. He was
essentially the man of his own times, and seemed to resume their
various aspects in himself, a sound Catholic and an ardent liberal; a
classicist and a romanticist; a conservative and an innovator;
impetuous yet moderate in his aims; frequently inconsistent with
himself, yet ever controlled by an austere sense of duty; a fine and
even brilliant writer, who yet could achieve no durable work. His
account of his exile at Corfu, nevertheless, deserves to live for its
style, although the theme is insufficient. Tommaseo was a man of
marked character, disinterested, independent and impracticable;
rejecting the public honours which he had well earned by his share
in the defence of Venice, he spent his later years at Florence, where,
although totally blind, he worked indomitably to the last. He should
be endeared to England as the author of the fine inscription placed
upon the house of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
The history of Italian poetry during the post-Napoleonic era, after
deducting the great names of Leopardi and Giusti, is in the main the
history of the romantic school. It has been remarked that this school
is not congenial to the Italian genius, and that its temporary
prevalence could only occur through the decay of the classical
tradition and the inevitable reaction from the excesses of the
Revolution. It was further prejudiced in Italian eyes by the
ecclesiastical colouring which it could not help assuming. Most of the
literary youth of Italy, though they might not be bad Catholics, were
still better patriots, and although their compositions might be
influenced by Scott and Goethe, were utterly averse to the mediæval
development which the romantic idea was receiving in France and
Germany. This was particularly the case with the first poet of
eminence who imbibed romantic feeling from Manzoni and broke
entirely with the already attenuated classicism of Monti and Foscolo.
GIOVANNI BERCHET (1783-1851), although of French descent, was a
devoted Italian patriot, whose first works of importance were
published in London, where he had been obliged to seek refuge. He
began by denouncing the conduct of the English Government
towards the people of Parga, and followed this up by a succession of
stirring ballads, mostly of patriotic tendency, and a longer poem,
Fantasie, a vision of the past glories of the Lombard League. In style
these poems resemble the romantic poetry of Germany and England,
without a vestige of classical influence, but also with no trace of the
worship of the past, except as an example to the present, or
anything of the mystic spirit of genuine romanticism. Well timed as
they were, their effect was extraordinary; but whether antique or
contemporary in subject, they were essentially poems of the day,
and such poetry cannot continue to be read unless it attains the
level of Manzoni’s ode on the death of Napoleon and Tennyson’s on
the death of Wellington. This Berchet knew. “My aim was not,” he
said on one occasion, “to write a fine poem, but to perform a fine
action.” His style is consequently defective; his poetry was not
written to be criticised, but to inspire and inflame, and fully
answered its purpose. “He has found,” says Settembrini, “all the
maledictions that can possibly be hurled against the foreigner.” Upon
Charles Albert’s conversion to the national cause, Berchet returned
to Italy, and died a member of the Sardinian Parliament, universally
honoured and beloved, nor will his countrymen forget him.
“Accursed,” adds Settembrini, “be the Italian who forgets GABRIELE
ROSSETTI.” Rossetti (1785-1854) assuredly will not be forgotten by
England, for which he has done what no other inhabitant of these
isles ever did in begetting two great poets. His claims to the
gratitude of his countrymen are of quite another sort, resting chiefly
upon the spirit and fluency of his political poems, which helped to
keep the flame of patriotism alive at home, while the exiled author
was teaching Italian at King’s College. His life is well known as an
appendage to the biography of his more celebrated son. It is one of
the most interesting speculations imaginable what kind of poetry
Dante Gabriel Rossetti would have written if he had been born and
brought up in Italy; certain it is that no prefigurement of his singular
alliance of purity and transparency of feeling with intricacy of
thought and opulence of illustration, or of his objectivity and
marvellous pictorial gift, is to be found in his father’s simple, natural,
rather overfluent verse. The elder Rossetti may, nevertheless, be
ranked among the poets of the romantic school; and a similar place
belongs to the amiable Luigi Carrer (1801-53) on account of his
ballads, the most successful of his works. Francesco dall’ Ongaro, a
good lyric poet in other departments, applied the popular stornello
to the purposes of patriotic poetry with eminent success.
Two poets of more importance enjoyed for a time great renown, but
their reputation, without becoming extinct, has considerably
declined. GIOVANNI PRATI (1815-54), a native of the Italian Tyrol,
gained great reputation in 1841 by a narrative poem in blank verse,
Edmenegarda, founded upon a tragic event in the family of the great
Venetian patriot Daniele Manin. It is a poor apology for adultery, but
in sentimentality, though not in morality, belongs to the school of
Lamartine, whose Jocelyn was then at the meridian of its celebrity.
In consequence, notwithstanding much real poetical merit, it bears
that fatal impress of the boudoir which disfigures so much of the
best pictorial as well as poetical work of the time. Its success
encouraged Prati to produce several volumes of lyrics, spirited,
melodious, but too fluent. His facility, like Monti’s, approached the
faculty of improvisation, but Monti’s tawny torrent has shrunk in Prati
into a silver rill, equally swift but by no means equally majestic. He is
nevertheless a poet, and in a particular manner the poet of the brief
interval of hope and joy which accompanied the uprising of 1848.
The national feeling of the time remains embodied in these verses,
the most permanently valuable of his writings; for the more
imaginative and ambitious productions of his later years, such as
Satana e le Grazie or Armando, though interesting, belong to the
fundamentally unsound genre of adaptation from Faust.
Another poet once in the enjoyment of a popularity which he has
failed to retain is ALEARDO ALEARDI (1812-78). He has too much
elegance and feeling to be forgotten, but wants force; his general
attitude seems not inaccurately indicated in his own description of
his heroine Arnalda da Roca as she appeared in the act of blowing
up a shipload of Turks:

“Placidamente fulminò la palla.”

The expression is rarely at the height of the sentiment to be

expressed. If this can be overlooked, the reader who does not wish
his emotions to run away with him may find much to admire in the
languid grace of the poems, generally descriptive, didactic or idyllic,
which form the most important part of Aleardi’s work. It is rather a
reproach than an honour to his patriotic lyrics that their strong point
should be not eloquence but description, which is always excellent.
The reputation of the good priest and good patriot, GIACOMO ZANELLA
(1820-89), has, on the contrary, gone on increasing, and with
justice, for his verse is usually at the level of his thought, and his
thought, if more frequently graceful than striking, sometimes attains
a commanding elevation, as in his odes to Dante and on the opening
of the Suez Canal. His Psyche and Egoism and Charity are clearly
and exquisitely cut as Greek gems. Zanella’s speciality, however, is
his effort to ally science with poetry, and though he cannot always
prevail upon them to shake hands, one of his lyrics of this character,
The Vigil, a meditation upon Evolution from a theologian’s point of
view, is perhaps his masterpiece. Another very striking poem is the
colloquy between Milton and Galileo, in which Galileo’s dread of the
sceptical tendency of the science to which he has imparted such an
impulse is represented as determining Milton “to justify the ways of
God to man.” Zanella, a native of the Vicenzan district, was a gentle,
tender, melancholy man, not unlike Cowper, and his reason, under
the stress of domestic affliction, at one time seemed in danger of
suffering the same eclipse. Recovering, he forsook the career of
college professor for a cottage near Vicenza, where:

Dopo sparsi al vento

Tanti sogni superbi e tanto foco
Di poesia dagl’ anni inerti spento,
Voluntario romito in questo loco,
Tra pochi arbori e fior vivo contento.

This retirement, nevertheless, produced some of Zanella’s most

delicate poetry, comprised in his dainty little volume Astichello ed
altre Poesie, not yet included in his works. One of the most beautiful
of his poems, The Redbreast (Il Pettirostro), marvellously resembles
the idylls of Coleridge, with whose works Zanella betrays his
acquaintance. Charming, also, are the sonnets celebrating the
various aspects of the local river, the little Astichello, such as this
upon the sympathy between man and Nature in time of drought, a
“pathetic fallacy,” perhaps, but none the worse for that:—

Shrunk to a thread, the dwindling waters stray

Where Astichello 'neath the poplar flows
With languid tide that scarce avails to sway
The moss that nigh the midmost channel grows.

Sirius the while, ablaze with fiery ray,

Above the unsheltered meadow throbs and glows;
And all the blithe fecundity of May
One withering waste of dismal yellow shows.

The peasant groans despair, and shakes his head;

The friendly stream, munificent no more,
Barred from the brink it lately overran,
Like rustic met with rustic to deplore
The common ill, wails feebly from its bed,
Mingling its music with the plaint of man.

Zanella might have applied to himself the proud humility of Musset,

Mon verre n’est pas grand, mais je bois dans mon verre. His modest
strain was independent of traditional or contemporary influence. The
other poets of the time are more historically significant as
representing the decadence of the romantic school. A new
development was urgently required to make good its exhausted
vitality. The problem was solved much in the same way as that of
the renovation of the operatic stage, left void by the once brilliant
but now moribund school of Rossini, save that in that instance the
evening star of the old dispensation was also the morning star of the
new. No such Janus-Verdi arose upon poetry, but the man for the
occasion was found in the principal figure of our next chapter,
Giosuè Carducci.
The drama of the period has only one eminent representative, PIETRO
COSSA (1830-80), and his works, strictly speaking, fall somewhat
later. Cossa, though fine both in versification and rhetoric, is
essentially more of a playwright than of a poet, but half redeems his
deficiencies by a quality not too common on the tragic stage of our
day, masculine strength. Almost every scene is powerful, the action
rarely halts or lingers, there is never any room for doubt as to the
author’s intention, and the language is energetic without bombast.
Cossa’s shortcomings are mainly in the higher region of art. He has
little creative power, and although he is occasionally felicitous in the
invention of a minor character, he rarely ventures to travel beyond
the record in the delineation of the historical personages who form
the most important portion of his dramatic flock. There is no
penetration, no subtlety, nothing to manifest endowment with any
insight beyond the ordinary. As conventional representations,
however, Cossa’s characters are brilliant, and he may even be
accused of excess in the accumulation of historical traits, as though
he could not bear to part with an anecdote. Nero, Messalina, Cola di
Rienzo, The Borgias, Cleopatra, Julian the Apostate are among the
most remarkable of his numerous historical tragedies; if not great
plays or dramatic poems, they are, at all events, very splendid
historical masquerades. There is more originality in his one comedy,
Plautus and his Age, a lively picture of Roman society in Plautus’s
time.
The period immediately preceding the establishment of Italian unity
brought forth many novels, mostly of the Manzonian school. The
most important of these have been already mentioned. FRANCESCO
DOMENICO GUERAZZI (1804-73), of infelicitous memory as a politician,
had sufficient force as an historical novelist to deviate from the
Manzonian model, and to obtain for a while an European reputation
with his Battle of Benevento, Siege of Florence, and Pasquale Paoli.
He was a man of powerful but unregulated character, and the
inequality extends to his writings; his diction is extolled, his style
condemned. Italian fiction had a serious loss in Ippolito Nievo,
drowned on his return from Garibaldi’s expedition to Sicily.
“Perhaps,” says Vernon Lee, “no better picture could be given of
Italy in the last years of the eighteenth century than that contained
in Nievo’s Confessioni di un Ottuagenario.”
The literary period which we have been traversing in the last two
chapters may be approximately described as that extending from the
fall of Napoleon the First (1814) to the intervention of Napoleon the
Third in Italian politics (1859). It saw the later works of Monti and
Foscolo, all the chief productions of Manzoni, and everything of
Leopardi’s. Apart from these, it produced no great genius, but a
number of highly distinguished writers who did honour to their own
literature without producing any marked effect upon the literatures
of foreign nations. The main reason of this circumscription of Italian
influence was the legitimate preoccupation of Italy with her own
affairs. The main aspiration of every Italian breast was the expulsion
of the foreigner and the constitution of the national unity, whether
as monarchy, federation, or republic. This common thought gave a
noble unity to the authorship of the period, but could not materially
affect contemporary literatures, although Mazzini’s English writings,
Mr. Gladstone’s Neapolitan pamphlets, Sydney Dobell’s Roman, Mrs.
Browning’s Casa Guidi Windows and Poems before Congress, and
divers poems of Robert Browning, and Algernon Swinburne, and
Dante Rossetti, show that England was not uninfluenced by it. In the
next generation, Italian letters, though, except for the poets
Carducci and D’Annunzio, rather retrograding than advancing in
merit, became more influential by becoming more cosmopolitan.
 CHAPTER XXVI
CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE

The present age of letters in Italy resembles its contemporary

literary epochs in the one respect in which these agree among
themselves and differ from most preceding ages; it is an age of
literary anarchy. No standard of taste exists to which it is deemed
essential to conform, and antipathetic schools flourish comfortably, if
not always peaceably, side by side. This was the case with the Greek
schools of philosophy under the Roman Empire, but in literature has
rarely happened before the nineteenth century. At almost all former
periods some prevailing canon of taste has stamped the literary
productions of the era with its own signet, and the most celebrated
authors of the day have legislated for the rest. The Goethes, the
Victor Hugos, the Tennysons of our time, while powerfully affecting
contemporary thought, have failed to thus impress their image and
superscription on contemporary style. Scepticism which at former
periods would have horrified the coævals of Pope or Bembo, is
audaciously professed with regard to the merits of greater men; and
whereas, in former ages, admiration meant imitation, some of the
sincerest votaries of a Hugo or a Browning would be farthest from
attempting to reproduce their mannerisms. It is quite true that the
endeavour is still sometimes made to erect individual tastes and
distastes into articles of faith, that we are confidently told that such
a writer or such a form of art is hopelessly antiquated, and that such
another is accepted by the right-minded. But this dogmatism is
invariably an expression of individual taste, and has no real
substance and no permanence. The change cannot but be salutary
if, as we believe, it is in the main an effect of the expansion of the
area of knowledge. The class of intelligent readers is now so greatly
enlarged that the legislation of academies and the verdict of coteries
reach comparatively but a little way; readers think for themselves
more than they did of old; and if the public taste is less disciplined
than formerly, it is in less danger of being biassed in one direction. It
may be added that the armistice between the classic and romantic
schools, consequent upon the proved inability of each to subdue the
other, has demonstrated the impossibility of any infallible æsthetic
criterion. Men disputed what this criterion might be, and different
conceptions of it prevailed in different ages, but the existence of
some definite standard entitled to exact conformity was questioned
by none. Now it is generally recognised that men are born classicists
or romanticists, as they have been said to be born Platonists or
Aristotelians, and that the right course for every author is to
cultivate his powers in whatsoever direction Nature has assigned to
them, and for every reader to strive to appreciate excellence
whencesoever it comes. The result is life, spirit, energy, but a
commotion as of tossing billows, which may or may not eventually
settle down into the calm of an accepted theory of art.
We cannot speak in Italy more than elsewhere of any great writer as
ruling his age and prescribing laws to his contemporaries. Individual
genius, however, is no less effective than of old upon those
constitutionally in sympathy with it, and no gifted writer can
introduce a new style without enlisting disciples and provoking
antagonists. Such a genius and such a style appertain to GIOSUÈ
CARDUCCI (born 1836), the one contemporary poet of Italy who, if we
except Gabriele d’Annunzio, “in shape and gesture proudly eminent,”
stands forth like a tower from the rest, and who has made an
abiding reputation as the introducer of the new elements needed to
replace the expiring impulse of the romantic school. Like many of his
compeers, Carducci partakes of both classic and romantic elements;
romantic in his revolt against convention, classic in his worship of
antique form; and it is in great measure this duality which renders
him so important and interesting.
Carducci, far from being the literary dictator of his age, is perhaps
not less distasteful to the ultra-realists for whom he paved the way,
than to the romanticists whom he overthrew, yet is in a very special
sense the representative of his age and nation. The commencement
of poetical activity synchronised with a new dispensation in the
world of politics. The reviving nation must have a new poet or none.
Egypt was plainly unfit to sing the songs of Sion. The submission of
Manzoni, the despair of Leopardi, had in their respective ways well
suited an age of slavery; but the age of liberty had now arrived, and
craved strains combative, resonant, and joyous. The Pope’s obstinate
clinging to the temporal power also compelled the national poet to
be anti-clerical. Neither Carducci’s political nor his religious views
wanted anything essential to the effectual fulfilment of his mission:
that their vehemence sometimes transgressed the limits of good
sense and good taste would probably now be acknowledged by
himself. It was equally important that the form should correspond to
the feeling. The new spirit sought a new body. Carducci solved the
problem in the same manner as Chiabrera would have solved it two
centuries and a half before, had Chiabrera’s genius equalled his
discernment. He perceived that in the circumstances of his day a
return to classic models would be no retrogression, but renovation
for Italian poetry: unfortunately he had no true insight into the
classical spirit. This Carducci possessed, and there are few happier
examples of the alliance of one literature with another than the
poems, the most important part of his work, in which he has kept
classical examples steadily before him. The imitation, it must be
understood, is one of form and not of essence; the themes are but
occasionally classical, and even when this is the case express the
feelings of a modern Italian spirit. Imitate classical forms as the poet
may, he is essentially the man of the nineteenth century: his variety
of mood and theme is great; his orchestra has a place for every
instrument; but in nine cases out of ten the direction to the
performer is con brio. By this dashing vigour Carducci has poured
new blood into the exhausted veins of Italian poetry, and
administered an antidote to her besetting maladies by the example
of a style condensed, nervous, and terse to a fault. Epic or dramatic
power he does not claim: his genius is entirely lyrical.
Carducci’s first volume appeared in 1857, and the events of the
following years called forth a number of occasional poems, clearly
indicating the representative poet of the people and the time. In
1865, the vigorous “Hymn to Satan” provoked the controversy which
the poet had no doubt designed. His Satan, it hardly need be said, is
not the monarch of the fallen seraphim, but the spirit of revolt
against social and ecclesiastical tyranny, more of a Luther than a
Lucifer. Levia Gravia (1867) greatly extended the poet’s reputation.
Odi Barbare (1877) excited a literary controversy almost as virulent
as the theological. The splendour of the diction was beyond
question, but what was to be said to the novel or exotic forms in
which the poet had thought fit to clothe it? To us, the naturalisation
of the Alcaic and Sapphic metres appears most successful, although
in the former the writer has permitted himself some deviation from
the Horatian model, and the form is perhaps too deeply impressed
with his own personality to become frequent in Italian literature.
Most of the other forms, including the hexameters and pentameters,
seem to us either too stiff or too intricate to be quite satisfactorily
manipulated even by Carducci himself; but the study of them must
be a valuable training for practitioners in more facile metres. If the
form be sometimes too elaborate, there can be no dispute as to the
weight and massive majesty of the sense. Carducci has solved the
problem which baffled the Renaissance, of linking strength of
thought to artifice of form. The Rime Nuove brought him new
laurels, and his poetical career has paused for the present with a
noble ode on the tercentenary of Tasso in 1895. The jubilee of his
connection with the University of Bologna was celebrated by a great
demonstration in 1896, and, reconciled with the monarchy which he
once opposed, he enjoys the honour of a Senator of the Kingdom. A
Liberal but a Royalist, a freethinker but a theist, he is happily placed
to exert a reconciling and moderating influence alike in the political
and the intellectual sphere.
The difficulties of translating Carducci’s more characteristic poems
are almost insuperable. He is not in the least obscure, but his noble
and austere form is indissolubly wedded to the sense, and in
reproduction his bronze too often becomes plaster. Many versions,
moreover, would be required to render justice to the various aspects
of his many-sided genius—his love of country, his passion for
beautiful form, his Latin and Hellenic enthusiasm, his photographic
intensity of descriptive touch, his sympathy for honest labour and
uncomplaining poverty, his capacity for caressing affection and
scathing indignation. The following poem powerfully exhibits his
intense devotion to the past, and faith in the future of his Italy. The
subject is the statue of Victory in the Temple of Vespasian at
Brescia; but to appreciate the full force of the poem, it must be
known that the statue was a recent discovery of happiest augury
(1826), and that Brescia had been the scene of an heroic defence
and a cruel sack in the uprising against the Austrians in 1848:
Hast thou, high Virgin, wings of good augury
Waved o’er the crouching, targeted phalanxes,
With knee-propt shield and spear protended,
Biding the shock of the hostile onset?

Or hast thou, soaring in front of the eagles,

Led surging swarms of Marsian soldiery,
With blaze of fulgent light the neighing
Parthian steed and his lord appalling?

Thy pinions folded, thy stern foot haughtily

Pressing the casque of foeman unhelmeted;—
Whose fair renown for feat triumphant
Art on the orb of thy shield inscribing?

An archon’s name, who boldly in face of Wrong

The freeman’s law upheld and immunity?
A consul’s, far and wide the Latin
Limit and glory and awe enlarging?

Thee throned on Alpine pinnacle loftily,

Radiant 'mid tempest, heralding might I hear,
Kings and peoples, here stands Italy,
Weaponed to strike for her soil and honour.

Lydia, the while, a garland of flowerets,

By sad October strewn o’er the wreck of Rome,
To deck thee braids, and gently bending,
Questioneth, as at thy foot she lays it:

“What thoughts, what visions, Victory, came to thee,

Years on years in the humid imprisonment
Of earth immured? the German horses
Heardest thou stamp o’er thy brow Hellenic?”

“I heard,” she answers, flashing and fulminant,

“H d d d d f l fG I
 “Heard and endured, for glory of Greece am I,
And strength of Rome, in bronze immortal
Sped without flaw through the fleeting ages.

“The ages passed like the twelve birds ominous,

Descried by gaze of Romulus anciently:
They passed, I rose: thy Gods, proclaiming,
Italy, see! and thy buried heroes.

“Proud of her fortune, Brescia enshrinèd me,

Brescia the stalwart, Brescia the iron-girt,
Italia’s lioness, her vesture
Dyed in the blood of her land’s invaders.”
A large proportion of Carducci’s lyrics flow with more of liquid ease
in more familiar metres, better adapted for popularity. This is
especially the case with his impassioned addresses to the dead or to
contemporaries who have won his admiration, and the poems which
depict ordinary life, such as “A Dream in Summer,” “On a Saint
Peter’s Eve,” and “The Mother,” whose apparently loose but really
well-knit texture is admirably reproduced by his American translator
Mr. Sewall, and which are such pieces as Walt Whitman might have
written if he had been a poet in virtue of his art as well as of his
nature. Perhaps none of the shorter pieces is more expressive of his
profound humanity than his apotheosis of patient toil under the
figure of “The Ox,” ably rendered by Mr. Sewall, a poem Egyptian in
its grave massiveness and tranquil repose:
 I love thee, pious Ox; a gentle feeling
Of vigour and of peace thou giv’st my heart.
How solemn, like a monument, thou art!
Over wide fertile fields thy calm gaze stealing!
Unto the yoke with grave contentment kneeling,
To man’s quick work thou dost thy strength impart:
He shouts and goads, and, answering thy smart,
Thou turn’st on him thy patient eyes appealing.

From thy broad nostrils, black and wet, arise

Thy breath’s soft fumes; and on the still air swells,
Like happy hymn, thy lowing’s mellow strain.
In the grave sweetness of thy tranquil eyes
Of emerald, broad and still reflected, dwells
All the divine green silence of the plain.

Carducci has rendered his country much service as a literary critic,

especially of the Renaissance, and of the Risorgimento of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He is not subtle or profound,
but puts forth unanswerably propositions dictated by the soundest
common-sense. There is something Teutonic as well as Italian in his
composition, and he recalls no precursor so much as the German
poet Platen, an equal master of form; but Platen, though a real
patriot, is more at home with any nation than his own. It is a chief
glory of Carducci to have united an intensely patriotic spirit to a
comprehensive cosmopolitanism. Though ranging far and wide to
enrich the domestic literature with new metrical forms, he loves
those in which the Italian genius has embodied itself from days of
old, and is always ready to defend them against degenerate
countrymen, no less than against unappreciative foreigners. Like
Wordsworth, he has simultaneously vindicated and illustrated the
sonnet:
 Brief strain with much in little rife; whose tone,
As worlds untrodden rose upon his thought,
Dante touched lightly; that Petrarca sought,
Flower among flowers by gliding waters grown;
That from trump epical of Tasso blown
Pealed through his prison; that wert gravely fraught
With voice austere by him who marble fought
To free the spirit he divined in stone:—

To Æschylus new-born by Avon’s shore

Thou camest harbinger of Art, to be
A hidden cell for hidden sorrow’s store;
On thee smiled Milton and Camoens; thee,
His rout of lines unleashing with a roar,
Bavius blasphemes; the dearer thence to me.

Carducci’s example could not but create a school of poets, many of

great merit, but most of whom stand to him more or less in the
relation of disciples to a master. The chief exception is the only one
who can claim, like Timotheus, to “divide the crown,” GABRIELE
D’ANNUNZIO.

D’Annunzio (born 1863) is a second Marini, endowed with an even

more brilliant genius, and better armed against besetting faults. It is
terrible to think what synchronism with Marini might have made of
him, but it has been his good fortune to have had Carducci’s
example before his eyes, and his merit to have profited by it. At the
same time his genius is so distinct from Carducci’s as to vindicate for
him an independent position. To employ Coventry Patmore’s happy
application of a passage in Zephaniah to the poetic art, D’Annunzio
rather represents “Beauty,” and Carducci “Bands”; the note of the
one is restraint, and that of the other is exuberance. D’Annunzio’s
verse is not cast in bronze like Carducci’s, nor has he his rival’s
splendid virility or his devotion to ideal interests; his affluence is
nevertheless so well restrained by a natural instinct for form that it
never, as with Marini, becomes riotous extravagance. Some of the
metrical forms, indeed, which, influenced as may be surmised by Mr.
Swinburne, he has endeavoured to introduce, seem ill adapted to
the genius of the Italian language, though they would probably
succeed well in English. But nothing can be more satisfactory than
the form of his sonnets or of his ballad-romances, and he has
enriched Italian poetry with one new form of great beauty, the rima
nona, a happy compromise between the terse purity of the national
octave and the rich harmony, like the chiming of many waters, of the
English Spenserian stanza, which no foreign literature has yet
succeeded in acclimatising. It is also to his honour that, while no
writer is more partial to the employment of unusual words,
commonly derived from science or natural history, the effect is that
of brilliant mosaic without a mosaic’s rigidity, but soft and liquid as a
glowing canvas.
In many respects D’Annunzio presents a strong affinity to Keats; but
to the innocent sensuousness which rejoices in the reproduction of
sumptuous beauty, he adds that which purposely ministers to
voluptuousness. This might be forgiven as the failing of a youthful
and ardent poet, and becomes, indeed, much less obtrusive in his
later poetical writings. The misfortune is that nothing seems to be
taking its place. Had years brought D’Annunzio “the philosophic
mind,” had his third volume compared with its predecessors as
Locksley Hall and In Memoriam compare with the Lotus Eaters, he
would be at the head, not merely of Italian, but of European poets.
His most recent productions, while indicating, as must almost
inevitably be the case, an impoverishment of the merely sensuous
opulence of his youth, manifest but slight advance in power of
thought, in dignity of utterance, in human or national sympathies, in
anything that discriminates the noon of poetical power from its
morning. The Canto Novo (1881) and the Intermezzo (1883) were a
splendid dawn; and L’Isotteo (1885) and La Chimera (1888) revealed
further development, not indeed in power of thought, but in
objectivity and in mastery of form. Much of all these volumes is
mere voluptuous dreaming, but the pictures of nature are
marvellously vivid; such pieces as the little unrhymed lyric of twelve
lines, O falce di luna calante, reveal the natural magic which is
perhaps the rarest endowment of genius; and the melody is such as
is only granted to a true poet. In the Poema Paradisiaco, the joy of
life is evidently on the wane, and, except in a few pieces of exquisite
pathos, such as Consolazione, seems in danger of being replaced,
not by a nobler and more serious theory of life, but by the worst
kind of pessimism, that born of mere satiety. The most recent
poems, the Odi Navali (1893), though patriotic in theme, appear
tame and artificial in comparison with earlier work. The epilogue to
the Poema Paradisiaco, nevertheless, argues progress in the right
direction, and leaves room to hope that D’Annunzio may yet take
rank not merely with poets eminent for melody, fancy, and
imagination, but with those who have counted among the shaping
forces of their time.
The general impression of D’Annunzio’s poetry is one of dazzling
splendour and intoxicating perfume. The poet seems determined to
leave no sense ungratified, and not to omit a hue, an odour, or a
cadence that can by any possibility be pressed into his service. It
says much for the genuineness of his poetical faculty that he should
actually be able to perform this without falling into extravagance;
but although his lavish luxury of phrase and description is kept
within the limits of taste, the too uniform splendour satiates and
fatigues. Mr. Greene’s translations in his Italian Lyrists convey a very
good notion of D’Annunzio’s most usual manner. The following
sonnet may serve as a specimen:—
 Beneath the white full-moon the murmuring seas
Send songs of love across the pine-tree glade;
The moonlight filtering through the dome-topped trees
Fills with weird light the vast and secret shade;
A fresh salt perfume on the Illyrian breeze
From sea-weeds on the rock is hither swayed,
While my sad heart, worn out and ill at ease,
A wild poetic longing doth invade.

But now more joyous still the love-songs flow

O’er waves of silver sea; from pine to pine
A sweet name echoes in the winds that blow;
And, hovering through yon spaces diamantine,
A phantom fair with silent flight and slow,
Smiles on me from its great-orbed eyes divine.

At the same time D’Annunzio has another style, principally exhibited

in his minor lyrics and his ballad romances, where simple but perfect
melody is mated with hearty vigour. The contrast between
Tennyson’s Palace of Art and his Edward Gray is hardly greater than
that between the brilliant poetical landscape just quoted, and this
joyous aubade:—
 While yet the veil of misty dew
Conceals the morning flush,
(How light of foot the foxes’ crew
Are scampering in the bush!)

On damask bed my Clara spends

In dreams the idle hours:
(Warm the wet meadow’s breath ascends,
And herbs are sweet as flowers.)

Lift, lovely lady all amort,

The glory of your head.
(The hounds are yelling in the court
Enough to wake the dead.)

Hear’st not the note of merry horn

That calls thee to the chase?
(In glades of ancient oak and thorn
The deer hath left his trace.)

With manly vesture, trim and tight,

Those budding breasts be bound;
(I hear thy jennet neigh delight,
And paw the paven ground.)

Soho! my beauty! down the stairs

At last! Aha! Huzza!
(Red morning o’er the mountain flares.)
To saddle! and away!

It is manifest that although the Carduccis and D’Annunzios of the

present day may not rank higher as poets than the Montis and
Leopardis of the past, they have done far more to fit the Italian lyre
with new strings, and have opened up paths of progress formerly
undreamed of. Many of the novel and exotic forms they have
introduced will richly repay cultivation, but the problem will be to
employ the technique acquired by their practice to the
embellishment and elevation of forms more adapted for general use.
This the great master of modern Italian poetry has seen, and,
magnificently as he has handled the more elaborate harmonies, it is
the simple, popular song that he invokes after all, while
incomparably exemplifying it:

Cura e onor de’ padri miei,

Tu mi sei
Come lor sacra e diletta.
Ave, o rima: e dammi un fiore
Per l’amore,
E per l’odio una saetta.

Apart from these two chief names Italy possesses at present a

number of excellent lyrical poets. The best known is perhaps Olindo
Guerrini, whose first poems, Posthuma, supposed to be edited from
the papers of an imaginary Lorenzo Stecchetti, caused a great
sensation, not so much by their unquestionable talent as by their
audacious immorality. Of late years Guerrini has produced a number
of poems on the political circumstances of the country, many of
which are perfect masterpieces of refined form and energetic
expression. As much may be said for the political verses of the
Parliamentary orator Felice Cavallotti. The poet of the social
revolution is Mario Rapisardi, a Sicilian, known also as the literary
antagonist of Carducci; while the sorrows of the poor are pathetically
expressed by a lady, Ada Negri. Alessandro Arnaboldi, lately
deceased, possessed an eminent faculty for description and excelled
in grave and dignified lyric, not unlike Matthew Arnold; while Italy
has her James Thomson in the gloomy and powerful Arturo Graf.
Antonio Fogazzaro, on the other hand, is the poet of hope and faith.
Enrico Panzacchi, less individual than most of these, surpasses them
all in grace and variety; Edmondo de Amicis, celebrated as a
traveller, has the gift of brilliant description; Luigi Capuana has
emulated Carducci’s metrical experiments; and excellent poetry has
been produced by Giovanni Marradi, Giuseppe Pascoli, and Alfredo
Baccelli. Translated specimens of these and other poets, with
biographical and bibliographical particulars, will be found in Mr. G. A.
Greene’s Italian Lyrists of To-Day. On the whole, the present
condition of Italian poetry is one of abundant vitality, but of deficient
concentration either in great men or great poems. The serious
drama is best represented by Cavallotti’s tragedies and the New
Testament trilogy of Giuseppe Bovio, and the humorous by the
comedies of Roberto Bracco and Giacinto Gallina.
The novel is at present as vigorously cultivated in Italy as in any
civilised nation, and the talent it attracts cannot be altogether devoid
of results. No talent, however, succeeds in permanently naturalising
forms of literature uncongenial to the national mind, and it remains
to be seen whether this is or is not the case with the novel in Italy.
The novelette arose spontaneously, and was maintained without
difficulty; but with every encouragement from the example of other
nations, Italy failed to acclimatise either romantic fiction or the novel
of manners, until far entered into the nineteenth century. The
inference that lengthy story-telling must be alien to the genius of the
people is confirmed by the general inferiority of modern Italian
novelists. One or two, such as Matilda Serao, Salvatore Farini, and
Giulio Barrili, have acquired a reputation beyond the limits of their
own country. One or two others, such as Antonio Fogazzaro, the
leader of a reaction towards a spiritualistic conception of things;
Carlo Placci, the very promising author of Un Furto; and Luciano
Zuccoli, author of Roberta, have shown the ability to impress
themselves upon the national literature.
Only two, however, seem to stand forth very decidedly as masters of
fiction. One of them is Gabriele d’Annunzio, already treated as a
poet. D’Annunzio’s novels have made more noise than his poems,
being from one point of view much more, from another much less,
suited for general perusal. The scandal which has grown up about
them has diverted attention from their real merits of fine style and
conscientious workmanship. As an artist, D’Annunzio is almost as
admirable in prose as in verse; and if with his descriptive he
combined the creative gift, all his immoralities would not debar him
from permanent renown. Unfortunately, he is like most French and
Italian novelists, monotonously restricted to the portrayal of a single
passion, and his splendid scenery is the background for trivial
characters. He reminds us of the demon in Victor Hugo’s poem, who
consumes the strength of lions and the wisdom of elephants in
fashioning a locust. This is the besetting sin of the novelists of
France and Italy: with a few brilliant exceptions on both sides, the
English novel lives by character, the French by situation.
D’Annunzio’s novels are nevertheless important literary events, and
cannot be omitted from any survey of modern European literature.
They have already gained him renown and circulation in France and
the United States. The most celebrated are Il Piacere, Il Trionfo della
Morte, La Vergine delle Rocce, the last of which is exempt from most
of the objections justly urged against the others.
GIOVANNI VERGA (b. 1840) rivals the European reputation of
D’Annunzio, and is, like him, the head of a realistic school; but his
realism is of quite another sort, owing nothing to Zola or
Maupassant. He is the most eminent European representative of the
local novel, dealing with the manners, humours, and peculiar
circumstances of some special locality. The vogue of this style was
perhaps originally due to George Sand’s idyllic pictures of Berri.
Verga has found a yet more interesting corner of the world to
delineate. A Sicilian, though residing at Milan, he has made his
native island the scene of his fiction. Centuries of misgovernment
have unhappily accumulated stores of tragic material in the people’s
misery and oppression, and the ferocity and vindictiveness these
have engendered. Verga depicts these circumstances with the fidelity
of a dispassionate observer and the skill of an artist. His books not
only attract in their own day, but will be treasured in the future
among the most valuable documents for the social history of Sicily.
Any one of even the minor poets whom we have enumerated has a
chance of reaching posterity, for their work is at all events individual,
and expressive of the personality of the author. If this is sufficiently
interesting, the work may live, though it be far from inaugurating a
new literary era like Carducci’s. It is otherwise with the
contemporary prose literature of Italy. A history, a biography,
philology like Ascoli’s or D’Ancona’s, a work on social science like
Sella’s or Morselli’s may possess great value as the work of an
expert, even though devoid of individuality; but in this case it must
sooner or later lapse into the category of books of reference. Such
appears to be the case with most of the excellent work now being
done in Italy in these and other departments: the statue is carved,
but no name is inscribed upon the pedestal, for the sculpture is the
work of a craftsman, not of an artist. Exceptions may be made in
favour of a few writers recently deceased—Ruggiero Bonghi,
translator of Plato and historian of Rome, one of the soundest heads
in Italy; Giuseppe Chiarini, champion of Carducci; Enrico Nencioni,
lately lost to his country, a high authority upon English literature;
Angelo de Gubernatis, a brilliant and almost too versatile critic and
philologist; and Giuseppe Guerzoni, raised above himself by his
theme when he wrote the life of Garibaldi. Among living men, two at
least have won an abiding reputation as writers, apart from the
utilitarian worth of their work—Pascale Villari, biographer of
Savonarola and Machiavelli, and writer on the social conditions of
the South; and Domenico Comparetti, author of Virgilio nel Medio
Evo. In general, however, the chief distinction of contemporary
writers on serious subjects seems to be their general diligence and
good sense. Admirable writers have gained European renown for
themselves, and exalted the fame of their country by the substantial
merit of works making no especial pretension to literary distinction.
Thus Ascoli stands high in general philology; D’Ancona, Tigri, and
Rubieri in literary history; Lanciani and Rossi in archæology; Nitti in
historical research; Pasolini and Solerti in biography; Cremona in
mathematics; Lombroso and Ferrero in psychology; and Cossa in
political economy.
These form a galaxy indeed, but belong rather to learning and
science than to literature. This temporary languor of pure literature
may perhaps be accounted for when it is considered that one main
factor of inspiration has been removed by the contentment of the
national aspirations. The subjection and oppression of the country,
with all their evils, at all events afforded an intense stimulus to
literary genius. Every Italian heart was possessed by the emotions
most conducive to impassioned composition; and patriotic
sentiment, even when not expressed in words, imbued the whole of
literature. The tension removed, it was perhaps inevitable that
overstrained feelings should decline to a lower level, which may be
suddenly elevated by the occurrence of some great national crisis, or
the appearance of some genius gifted, like Mazzini and Carducci,
with an especial power of influencing the young. What Italian letters
seem to want above all things is men, other than poets and
novelists, capable of impressing their own individuality on what they
write, and such men are most readily formed either by the agitation
of stirring times, or by the contagious enthusiasm caught from a
great teacher.
The opinions of many eminent living men of letters on the future of
their country’s literature have been collected by Signor Ugo Ojetti in
his Alla scoperta dei Letterati (1895). They are not in general of a
very encouraging character, but their weight is considerably impaired
by their almost complete restriction to a single branch of literature,
and that one whose preponderance is by no means to be desired.
Almost all the authors interviewed by Signor Ojetti are novelists,
and, so far as appears from his reports, would appear utterly
unconscious of the existence of any class of literature but fiction,
poetry, and the drama. They seem to regard literature and belles
lettres as convertible terms, and take no notice of the wider and
more important domains of history, biography, philosophy, moral and
economic science, which may be and often have been in the most
flourishing condition while belles lettres languish. It is, indeed, much
to be wished that more of the literary talent of Italy were directed to
solid and permanent work, and less to fiction, which must be
ephemeral in proportion to the very fidelity with which it fulfils its
ordinary task of depicting the manners of the day. Work like
Comparetti’s Virgilio nel Medio Evo, for example, confers higher
distinction on the national literature than any number of novels,
unless when creations of genius of a high order.
Such genius, when exercised in fiction or in poetry, does not depend
for its manifestation upon the state of the book market; the really
gifted author obeys an impulse from within. “Genius does what it
must, and talent does what it can.” If modern Italians have it in
them to produce great books, they will not be prevented by such of
the obstacles stated by Signor Ojetti’s confabulators as may be fairly
resolved into one, the insufficient remuneration of literary work. It is
just to acknowledge, however, the existence of impediments of
another kind. From the earliest period of letters Italy has suffered
from the variance of the written and the spoken language. The
refinements of cultivated circles at Rome were not accepted in the
provinces: there was a Latin of books and a Latin of ordinary life. In
process of time the former became the exclusive speech of the
learned, while the language of the vulgar gave birth to a number of
dialects, out of which, when a vernacular literature came to exist,
the Tuscan was selected as the most appropriate for written speech.
Hence there has always been something artificial in Italian literary
language. Many of the most gifted authors who happened to be
born out of Tuscany never attained to write it with perfect
correctness; and the jealous care taken to ensure its purity tended
to limit its flexibility and compass. It thus became hardly adequate to
deal with the mass of neologism absolutely forced upon it by the
development of modern civilisation.
“The difficulty,” says Symonds, “under which a mother-tongue,
artificially and critically fashioned like Italian, suffers when it copes
with ordinary affairs of modern life, is illustrated by the formation of
feeble vocables, and by newspaper jargon,” of which he gives a
horrible instance. The same critic wrote in 1877: “Italian has
undergone no process of transformation and regeneration according
to the laws of organic growth since it first started. The different
districts still use different dialects, while writers in all parts of the
peninsula have conformed their style, as far as possible, to early
Tuscan models. It may be questioned whether united Italy, having
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