Two billion metric tonnes of concrete are made worldwide annually, it’s also a very economic material so it’s used unsparingly. This wasn’t always the case and for a while, it was a material much loved by architects to be seen and revered. It is made from materials commonly found all over the world except the cement constituent. The Romans made a type of concrete but this knowledge was forgotten in the dark ages.
In 1824 Joseph Aspdin from Leeds made the first modern cement from pulverised limestone and clay which he then burnt and ground down into a powder. He named this “portland cement” because its colour resembled Portland stone. It has a very good compressive strength which is durable and can be formed into complex shapes and sets at a wide range of temperatures. We now combine it with steel to increase its tensile strength which makes it an underrated wonder material of the modern age.
A type of modern architecture not in favour these days called Brutalism was coined not because it is somewhat brutal in appearance, but from the joining together of two French words, brut (the french word for raw) and béton the french for concrete, and this got corrupted into Brutalism.
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