Concrete is the most used man-made material in the world, so common that it is easy to overlook the long history of innovation behind the modern material.
The manufacturing of modern Portland cement can be traced to 1824, when Joseph Aspdin of England patented a method of burning a mixture of limestone and clay and grinding the product into a fine powder. The name “Portland” simply refers to the color, which resembled building stones from Portland, England. While it would be many years before the standard compositions of modern Portland cements were finalized, the work of Joseph Aspdin marked the beginning of modern concrete.
The addition of steel bars to concrete compensates for concrete’s weakness in tension, and makes concrete a highly versatile building material. There were many pioneering applications, including concrete rowboats reinforced with iron bars and mesh (Jean-Louis Lambert, France, 1848). The first reinforced concrete building is often credited to William B. Wilkinson of England in 1854, although other sources credit Francois Coignet of France in 1853. The advanced use of reinforcement is generally credited to Joseph Monier of France and the principles behind his 1867 patent for a system of reinforcing flower pots. Monier would continue to develop reinforcing systems which were applied to a great variety of structures.
