![Kolonnade Eingang Marianske Lazne](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Kolonnade_Eingang_Marianske_Lazne.jpg)
Cast-iron architecture is the use of
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
in buildings and objects, ranging from bridges and markets to warehouses, balconies and fences. Refinements developed during the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
in the late 18th century made cast iron relatively cheap and suitable for a range of uses, and by the mid-19th century it was common as a structural material (and sometimes for entire buildings), and particularly for elaborately patterned architectural elements such as fences and balconies, until it fell out of fashion after 1900 as a decorative material, and was replaced by modern
steel
Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
and concrete for structural purposes.
Structural use
Cast iron is not a good structural material for handling
tension
Tension may refer to:
Science
* Psychological stress
* Tension (physics), a force related to the stretching of an object (the opposite of compression)
* Tension (geology), a stress which stretches rocks in two opposite directions
* Voltage or el ...
or
bending moment
In solid mechanics, a bending moment is the reaction induced in a structural element when an external force or moment is applied to the element, causing the element to bend. The most common or simplest structural element subjected to bending mome ...
s because of its brittleness and relatively low
tensile strength
Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS), ultimate strength, or F_\text within equations, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials t ...
compared to steel and
wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...
. However, cast iron does have good
compressive strength
In mechanics, compressive strength or compression strength is the capacity of a material or structure to withstand loads tending to reduce size (as opposed to tensile strength which withstands loads tending to elongate). In other words, compre ...
and was successfully used for structural components that were largely in compression in well-designed bridges and buildings. In a few instances bridges and buildings built with cast iron failed when misused.
Cast iron was used as early as the 9th century in
pagoda
A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...
construction in
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
China.
Texts written by the Japanese Buddhist monk
Ennin
, better known in Japan by his posthumous name, Jikaku Daishi (), was a priest of the Tendai school of Buddhism in Japan, and its third . Ennin was instrumental in expanding the Tendai Order's influence, and bringing back crucial training and re ...
describe in detail the cast-iron pagodas and statues widespread in China at the time.
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...
of Buddhism in China in the 840's led to the destruction of many of these structures.
The later Song Dynasty also built cast iron pagodas, exploiting its ability to be both structural and to be cast in any shape, such as in imitation of the timber and tiles of a standard pagoda. The 22m Iron Pagoda at the
Yuquan Temple (Jade Springs Temple), Dangyang, Hubei, was built during the
Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
in 1061, and is the most outstanding example to survive. Cast iron pagodas were then superseded by even more elaborate bronze ones, but cast iron continued to be used for decorative items such as bowls and statues.
In Europe, it was in late 18th-century Britain that new production methods first allowed cast iron to be produced cheaply enough and in large enough quantities to regularly be used in large building projects. New production methods included using steam engine powered blast air, which allowed higher blast furnace temperatures, which in turn allowed the use of more limestone to be added with the iron ore charge. The higher furnace temperatures made the slag produced with the additional lime to flow more freely. The calcium and magnesium in the lime helped tie up sulfur, which allowed the use of
coke for fuel. The higher furnace temperatures also increased the furnace capacity.
Bridges
![William Williams The Iron Bridge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/William_Williams_The_Iron_Bridge.jpg)
One of the first important projects was
The Iron Bridge
The Iron Bridge is a cast iron arch bridge that crosses the River Severn in Shropshire, England. Opened in 1781, it was the first major bridge in the world to be made of cast iron. Its success inspired the widespread use of cast iron as a str ...
in
Shropshire
Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...
, opened in 1781, a precedent-setting structure made almost entirely of cast iron. However, it was grossly over-designed, and the makers (principally
Abraham Darby Abraham Darby may refer to:
People
*Abraham Darby I (1678–1717) the first of several men of that name in an English Quaker family that played an important role in the Industrial Revolution. He developed a new method of producing pig iron with ...
) suffered financially as a result. The quality of the iron used in the bridge is not high, and nearly 80 brittle cracks are visible in the present structure. Nevertheless, its success led to the use of cast iron for further bridges and structures by the
Coalbrookdale
Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called the Gorge.
This is where iron ore was first s ...
foundries and others.
Engineer
Thomas Telford
Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotla ...
improved both the design and quality of the material in bridges, for example, at
Buildwas
Buildwas is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England, on the north bank of the River Severn at . It lies on the B4380 road between Atcham and Ironbridge. The Royal Mail postcodes begin TF6 and TF8.
Buildwas Primary Academy is situa ...
in 1796, upstream of
Coalbrookdale
Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called the Gorge.
This is where iron ore was first s ...
, and also for aqueducts, such as the world-famous
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (; cy, Traphont Ddŵr Pontcysyllte) is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen in northeast Wales.
The 18-arched stone and cast iron structure is for use ...
in North Wales, built in 1805, where both the arches and the trough are constructed of cast iron. On the continent, the 1804
Pont des Arts
The Pont des Arts or Passerelle des Arts is a pedestrian bridge in Paris which crosses the River Seine. It links the Institut de France and the central square (''cour carrée'') of the Palais du Louvre, (which had been termed the "Palais des Ar ...
in Paris is an early and elegant use of cast iron for a major city river crossing (the metal work of the current bridge is a near identical copy built in 1984 due to structural decay).
Another notable example is the elegant
Ha'penny Bridge
The Ha'penny Bridge ( ; , or ''Droichead na Life''), known later for a time as the ''Penny Ha'penny Bridge'', and officially the Liffey Bridge, is a pedestrian bridge built in May 1816 over the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland. Made of cast i ...
in Dublin, cast by the Coalbrookdale foundry, and built in 1816. The superior performance and greater spans of wrought-iron, and later wire suspension bridges, soon superseded cast iron for bridge construction.
![Pont des Arts (33934239473)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Pont_des_Arts_%2833934239473%29.jpg)
Early use in buildings
Cast-iron columns for buildings had the advantage of being extremely slender, compared with masonry columns capable of supporting similar weight. That saved space in factories, and so after the five-storey 1795
Ditherington Flax Mill
Ditherington Flax Mill (promoted as the Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings), a flax mill located in Ditherington, a suburb of Shrewsbury, England, is the first iron-framed building in the world, and described as "the grandfather of skyscrapers", with its internal structure of cast-iron proved the concept, it became ubiquitous in the multi-level mills of northern England, and then across Europe and the United States, helping to fuel the Industrial Revolution. Its usefulness for multi storey buildings ensured it remained popular for all kinds of industrial and commercial structures, as well as supports for balconies in theatres and even in churches, up until it was finally replaced by steel in about 1900.
Cast iron was also taken up by some architects in the early 19th century where smaller supports or larger spans were required (and where wrought iron was too expensive), notably in the
Royal Pavilion
The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George IV of t ...
in
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
, designed by
John Nash and built between 1816-1823, where cast iron columns were used within the walls, as well as cast iron beams, to enable the construction of the decorative domes; the columns in the kitchens were disguised as palm trees.
Roof frames
An elaborate cast iron frame was used for the dome of
Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor (russian: Исаа́киевский Собо́р) is a large architectural landmark cathedral that currently functions as a museum with occasional church services in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is ...
in St Petersburg (1837–38), and the new roof following a fire of
Chartes Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly con ...
(also 1837-8, and the widest span of a metal roof at the time). Similarly large span beams were also to support the wide roofs of the
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...
(1840s-50s).
Piers
Cast iron was also used as the principle support structure for seaside piers, with multiple slender columns able to support long decks of wrought iron and wood, and later large halls and pavilions; engineer
Eugenius Birch
Eugenius Birch (20 June 1818 – 8 January 1884) was a 19th-century English seaside architect, civil engineer and noted builder of promenade-piers.
Biography
Both Eugenius and his elder brother, John Brannis (born 1813), were born in Gloucester ...
built the first,
Margate Pier
The Margate Jetty (also known as Margate Pier) was a pier in Margate, Kent, in England initially constructed of wood in 1824. It was rebuilt in iron in 1855 and extended and added to over the years. It closed in 1976 over safety concerns and w ...
in 1855, followed by at least 14 piers in Britain in the 1860s-80s, and many more in Europe.
Use with wrought iron
Cast iron was not useful for items in tension like beams, where the more expensive wrought iron was preferred. Improvements in production saw the costs decrease at the same time as cast iron gained popularity. The
puddling process, patented in 1784, was a relatively low cost method for producing a structural grade
wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...
.
Puddled wrought iron was a much better structural material, and was preferred for bridges, rails, ships and building beams, and was often used in combination with cast iron, which was better in compression.
Steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
was an even better structural material than wrought iron, and new steel making processes developed in the late 19th century greatly lowered the cost of production to far below the cost of wrought iron. The widespread use of cast-and-wrought iron frames in multi-level buildings was translated into
steel-frame buildings, and was an essential step in the development of the modern
skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...
.
Architectural use
In Europe, cast iron had been occasionally used with architectural embellishment in the middle ages, such as fire backs with cast figures and scenes. The improvements in techniques in the late 18th century led to the possibilities of finer castings, allowing decorative objects such as statuary and jewelry to be mass produced. Following the development of the material as for structural purposes, it was soon adapted for uses that were both decorative and structural in all manner of buildings, structures and objects.
Early balustrades, railings and memorials''
![174](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/174._St._Petersburg._Summer_Garden.jpg)
As soon as improvements in techniques led to finer castings, designers exploited the decorative possibilities. As early as 1775, noted architect
Robert Adam
Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his o ...
joined with the Scottish
Carron Company
The Carron Company was an ironworks established in 1759 on the banks of the River Carron near Falkirk, in Stirlingshire, Scotland. After initial problems, the company was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom. ...
iron works to produce balcony railings in imitation of wrought iron, such as the railing for the
Adelphi in London (a pattern that was still produced into the 1830s). Another very early large scale example is the delicate fence of the
Summer Garden
The Summer Garden (russian: Ле́тний сад, ''Letniy sad'') is a historic public garden that occupies an eponymous island between the Neva, Fontanka, Moika, and the Swan Canal in
downtown Saint Petersburg, Russia and shares its name w ...
in Saint Petersburg, designed by
Georg Von Veldten
Georg may refer to:
* Georg (film), ''Georg'' (film), 1997
*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname)
* , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker
See also
* George (disambiguation)
{{disambiguation ...
, built between 1771 and 1784, which also imitated wrought iron, and is considered the pinnacle of cast iron design in the city. Other well known architects were early adopters of the material; John Nash employed cast iron as part of the structure of his landmark 1820s
Royal Pavilion
The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George IV of t ...
in Brighton, and German architect
Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Karl Friedrich Schinkel (13 March 1781 – 9 October 1841) was a Prussian architect, city planner and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassica ...
was an enthusiastic early adopter, using cast iron for memorials such as the 20m tall
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
Kreuzberg War Memorial in 1821, and the delightful nautical seahorses and mermaids in the balustrade of the 1820s
Castle Bridge in Berlin.
![Berlin (5595686874)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Berlin_%285595686874%29.jpg)
In
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, cast iron was used on the many bridges, sometimes as the supporting structure, but especially for the decorative railings and sculptural embellishments, including the chain-suspension 1826
Bank Bridge, with its distinctive cast iron griffin sculptures and elaborate balustrades, the 1840
Pevchesky Bridge, the 1842
Anichkov Bridge
The Anichkov Bridge (Russian: ''Аничков мост'', ''Anichkov Most'') is the oldest and most famous bridge across the Fontanka River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The current bridge, built in 1841-42 and reconstructed in 1906-08, combines ...
(a copy of the Berlin
Castle Bridge), and more seahorses on the 1843-1850
Annunciation Bridge
The Annunciation Bridge ( - ''Blagoveshchensky most''; from 1855 to 1918 Nikolaevsky Bridge, ; from 1918 to 2007 called Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge, ) is the first permanent bridge built across the Neva River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It conne ...
.
Prefabricated and transportable buildings
Since it could be used for all the structural members that would be cast in a foundry and then transported to site for erection, it was soon realised it could just as easily be transported anywhere in the world. The
Commissioner's House of the
Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
HMD Bermuda ( Her/His Majesty's Dockyard, Bermuda) was the principal base of the Royal Navy in the Western Atlantic between American independence and the Cold War. The Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda had occupied a useful position astride ...
designed by
Edward Holl and built in the 1820s, is considered to be the first residence that used cast iron structure, for the verandahs, and floor and roof framing, and proved the concept of prefabrication and transportation long distances. Designers and foundries in the UK and France went on to produced all kinds of prefabricated cast iron structures and items for shipping to their colonies, from decorative elements to structural components to entire buildings. During the
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capita ...
in Australia in the 1850s hundreds of various types of prefabricated structures were shipped out from England, in timber, cast or wrought iron, or a combination, often with
corrugated iron
Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a bu ...
for the walls and roof. They included houses, stores, three complete churches, and a theatre; the most elaborate surviving structure is the completely cast iron Corio Villa, in
Geelong
Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...
. Markets were a type of structure that lent themselves to prefabrication and shipping, such as the structure of the
Mercado Centrale in Santiago, Chile, which was shipped out from Glasgow firm Laidlaw & Sons in 1869. The
Marché en Fer
Marché en Fer ''or'' Marché de Fer ( en, Iron Market) also known as the ''Marché Hyppolite'' and the ''Marché Vallières'' is a public market in Haiti’s capital, Port‑au‑Prince. It was damaged by fire in 2008 and destroyed in the 2010 H ...
(Iron Market) in Port au Prince, Haiti, fabricated in Paris, was reputedly intended as a railway station for Cairo in 1891 but was purchased by the Haitian government instead.
An early type of completely prefabricated building was the large storage shed at dockyards. The Boat Shed (Number 78) at
Sheerness Naval Dockyards, built 1856-60, is constructed entirely of a cast and wrought iron members, braced as portal frames, with extensive window and timber infill panels forming the external walls. Though not entirely of cast iron, it is the earliest large metal framed building still standing, and a pioneer in the development metal frames.
Watson's Hotel in
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
was prefabricated in England and built in 1867-69, using brick infill panels in a heavy and decorative cast-iron frame and is the oldest completely cast iron framed building (as opposed to market or shed) in the world. Possibly the largest prefabricated cast iron structure is the
Bulgarian St. Stephen Church in Istanbul, shipped out from Vienna in the late 1890s.
French use, integrated with decorative scheme
![Chocolaterie Menier Moulin Saulnier, Noisiel - facade](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Chocolaterie_Menier_Moulin_Saulnier%2C_Noisiel_-_facade.jpg)
The
Menier Chocolate Mill in Noisiel, completed in 1872, is often cited as the first building with an expressed metal frame. It was not however the first given earlier examples, but it is one of the most attractive (and some of the framing is hidden by the bricks). Designed by
Jules Saulnier, it was an expression of a French approach that included an exposed metal frame as part of an overall decorative scheme, often using polychrome brick and tiles, with other examples later in date.
Verandahs and porches
The use of decorative cast iron as railings, fences and balconettes, then gradually gained popularity in Regency Britain and post-Napoleonic France as a cheaper alternative to the wrought-iron railings that only the wealthy could afford. The idea was exported to the colonies of both countries with hot climates as porches or verandahs, where it formed both decoration and structure.
![FQJan07IronBalcony](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/FQJan07IronBalcony.jpg)
New Orleans'
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as the , is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans (french: La Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Squ ...
has the most famous and elaborate examples and the greatest concentration, with light, lacy often multi-level porches on over 400 buildings, transforming the area from the 1850s-1880s. A few similar porches can be found in Savannah's
Historic District
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...
, and the
Church Hill and
Jackson Ward
Jackson Ward is a historically African-American district in Richmond, Virginia with a long tradition of African-American businesses. It is located less than a mile from the Virginia State Capitol, sitting to the west of Court End and north of B ...
neighborhoods in Richmond, though here it is mostly used for stair, porch and balcony railings. Numerous foundries in all three cities produced unique ornamental and structural designs in cast iron.
![Regatta Hotel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Regatta_Hotel.JPG)
In Australia, similar porches of usually only one or two levels, known as verandas, decorated with 'cast-iron lace', became a standard feature, shading the fronts of nearly every house, terrace house, pub and shop from the 1850s into the 1900s. Foundries in most cities and (with 42 in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
alone) and many country towns began by reproducing imported designs in the 1850s and then developing their own, sometimes featuring Australian fauna such as cockatoos and koalas, but most featured flowing classically derived or vine-like patterns. After a period in the 1950s-60s when cast iron verandahs were routinely demolished, since the late 1970s they made a revival, and numerous foundries still provide historic patterns to order. Decorative cast iron used in a similar way can be found in other former British colonies including South Africa, Malaysia and India.
Cast-iron facades
![Cadoro photo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Cadoro_photo.jpg)
In the 1840s the cheapness and malleability of cast iron led
James Bogardus
James Bogardus (March 14, 1800 – April 13, 1874) was an American inventor and architect, the pioneer of American cast-iron architecture, for which he took out a patent in 1850.
Early life
Bogardus was born in the town of Catskill in New York o ...
of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to develop the idea of buildings using cast iron for complete decorative facades, which were far cheaper than traditional carved-stone, but could be painted to give the appearance of stone. His first was put up in 1848, quickly followed by many more, and he promoted the idea in a pamphlet ''Cast Iron Buildings: Their Construction and Advantages'' (1858). The idea was taken up by other notable pioneer
Daniel D. Badger, whose iron works in the
East Village turned out "some of the most dramatic iron buildings this country has ever seen", most notably the
E. V. Haughwout Building
The E.V. Haughwout Building is a five-story, 79-foot (24 m) tall commercial loft building in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway. Built in 1857 to a design by John P. Gaynor, with ca ...
in 1857. Particularly popular for warehouse / industrial buildings, but also for department stores, the streets of the
SoHo
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develop ...
and
Tribeca
Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...
areas of New York and what is now known as the
Old City area of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
were soon lined with elaborate
Renaissance Revival
Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...
style facades. Warehouse districts in smaller US cities soon also saw many examples, but most have been demolished. The
West Main District, Louisville
The West Main District is one of the five districts of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The district, or a portion of it, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as West Main Street Historic District, due to its containment of some ...
Kentucky has the most surviving examples, with about 10 in a three block stretch. The
Skidmore/Old Town Historic District in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
also features a number of examples remaining from a once extensive district. In Europe, cast-iron architecture was never popular, except in the growing industrial city of
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, where a few survive, such as the 1872
Ca d’Oro Building.
Greenhouses, Exhibitions and Markets
![Crystal Palace](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Crystal_Palace.PNG)
Cast iron also became the standard support structure in the construction of larger
greenhouse
A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...
s. English architect and gardener
Joseph Paxton
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
experimented with frameworks of timber, cast-iron and glass in the 1820s and 30s, designing ever larger structures, often prefabricated, culminating in the monumental
Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace may refer to:
Places Canada
* Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick
* Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario
* Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...
exhibition hall built in London in 1851. The success of the concept spawned many imitators, as both exhibition halls and greenhouses, which were almost universally constructed of cast iron (sometimes in combination with wrought-iron) in the 19th century. The
Palm House at the
Belfast Botanic Gardens
Botanic Gardens is a public garden in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Occupying of south Belfast, the gardens are popular with office workers, students and tourists. They are located on Stranmillis Road in Queen's Quarter, with Queen's Univers ...
, completed in 1840, is an early surviving example.
Cast iron was particularly useful to provide the entire structure of market halls, with a solid roof and open sides or highlight windows, and by the end of the 19th century nearly every new market in Europe (and most in Latin America) were cast-iron, some vast and elaborate, such as the 1850s
Les Halles in Paris (demolished).
An interesting application is for a winter garden, with a solid roof but extensive glass walls, such as the Spa Colonnade in the spa town of
Mariánské Lázně
Mariánské Lázně (; german: Marienbad) is a spa town in Cheb District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. Most of the town's buildings come from its Golden Era in the second half of the 19th centu ...
in the Czech Republic, built in 1889, which features an elaborate roof structure and extensive Neo-Baroque decorations in the facade, all in cast iron.
Arcades
Cast iron was quickly adapted to allow ever wider glass roofs on the then the new idea of glass-roofed shopping arcades in Paris in the first decades of the 19th century. The idea spread across Europe and the United States in ever grander structures, and the largest examples had vast arched roofs in cast iron, such as the
Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel in Milan.
Roofs, domes and atriums
Cast iron was used for the construction of large domes, as early as 1811 with the huge dome of the
Bourse de commerce in Paris, originally the Corn Market and clad in copper (later replaced with glass). The central four storey circular hall and towering glass dome of the long-demolished 1849 London
Coal Exchange
The Coal Exchange (also known as the Exchange Building) is an historic building in Cardiff, Wales. It is designed in Renaissance Revival style. Built in 1888 as the Coal and Shipping Exchange to be used as a market floor and office building for ...
was an early and spectacular use of the material as both structure and architecture.
![P1280553 Paris IX eglise St-Eugene Ste-Cecile nef rwk1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/P1280553_Paris_IX_eglise_St-Eugene_Ste-Cecile_nef_rwk1.jpg)
The most famous example is the
United States Capitol dome
The United States Capitol features a dome situated above its rotunda. The dome is in height and in diameter. Designed by Thomas U. Walter, the fourth Architect of the Capitol, it was constructed between 1855 and 1866 at a cost of $1,047,291 (e ...
, built 1855-66 and made entirely of cast iron. The dome was designed by the architect
Thomas Ustick Walter
Thomas Ustick Walter (September 4, 1804 – October 30, 1887) was an American architect of German descent, the dean of American architecture between the 1820 death of Benjamin Latrobe and the emergence of H.H. Richardson in the 1870s. He was ...
, and erected by the New York iron foundry,
Janes, Fowler, Kirtland & Co. The dome consists of nearly 9 million pounds of cast iron.
The 1872
George Peabody Library
The George Peabody Library is a library connected to the Johns Hopkins University, focused on research into the 19th century. It was formerly the Library of the Peabody Institute of music in the City of Baltimore, and is located on the Peabody c ...
in Baltimore is a similarly elaborate atrium with glass roof, where all the structural members are also decorative and made of cast iron. The lofty glass roof of Milan's
Galleria, built 1865-77, is both a dome and glass roofed shopping arcade, the grandest ever built. Later glass roofs such as that of the
Grand Palais
The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées ( en, Great Palace of the Elysian Fields), commonly known as the Grand Palais (English: Great Palace), is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arro ...
in Paris employed wrought iron or steel.
Cast iron lent itself to creating thinner supports in churches, an early example in 1837, when architect Louis Auguste Boileau supported the interior of the
Eglise St-Eugene Ste-Cecile in Paris on slim cast iron columns and ribbed vaulting imitating the Gothic style, but thinner than stone would have allowed.
Two famous examples of cast iron as both support and decoration of a roof on slender columns are the two great mid 19thC libraries of
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, the double-arched roof of the
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...
reading room, built 1843-51, by architect
Henri Labrouste
Pierre-François-Henri Labrouste () (11 May 1801 – 24 June 1875) was a French architect from the famous École des Beaux-Arts school of architecture. After a six-year stay in Rome, Labrouste established an architectural training worksh ...
, who also designed an even more elegant multiple-domed reading room for the
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...
, built in 1861–68.
Street furniture and park items
Cast iron, a durable material that could take on any shape, was also popular from the mid 19th Century for
street furniture
Street furniture is a collective term for objects and pieces of equipment installed along streets and roads for various purposes. It includes benches, traffic barriers, bollards, post boxes, phone boxes, streetlamps, traffic lights, traf ...
. Not only park and building fences, often with elaborate gates, but also fountains, street lamps, bollards, tree grates and guards, as well as the UK
red post box, and in Paris it was used for the elaborate
advertising column
Advertising columns or Morris columns (french: colonne Morris, german: Litfaßsäule) are cylindrical outdoor sidewalk structures with a characteristic style that are used for advertising and other purposes. They are common throughout Germany inc ...
s, newspaper kiosks and
pissoir
A (also known in French as a ) is a French invention, common in Europe, that provides a urinal in public space with a lightweight structure. The availability of aims to reduce urination onto buildings, sidewalks, or streets. They can be fre ...
s the city is known for (though almost all are now contemporary reproductions in other materials). In the 1870s philanthropist Charles Wallace funded the installation of numerous ornate drinking fountains across Paris, and over 100
Wallace Fountains are still in use. Decorative
street lamps
A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution ...
in cast iron were used all over the world, from gas lamps in the second half of the 19th Century to electric ones in the first decades of the 20th - a collection of examples used in California in the 1920s and 30s now form a display outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, called
Urban Light
''Urban Light'' (2008) is a large-scale assemblage sculpture by Chris Burden located at the Wilshire Boulevard entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The 2008 installation consists of restored street lamps from the 1920s and ...
.
When underground trains were established in the 1890s-1900s, the stairs located in pavements were often housed in elaborate cast iron structures, notably the long demolished
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...
entrances (one survives at
City Hall station outside
New York City Hall
New York City Hall is the Government of New York City, seat of New York City government, located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center, Manhattan, Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway, Park R ...
), and the famous Art Nouveau
Paris Métro
The Paris Métro (french: Métro de Paris ; short for Métropolitain ) is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the Paris, city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform ar ...
entrances by
Hector Guimard.
For the same reasons, cast iron was also popular for structures within parks and gardens, both public and private, as well as on public promenades, used for fencing, seating, lamp posts, large fountains and drinking fountains, statues, decorative bridges, covered walkways, gazebos and bandstands. The 1885
Morisco Kiosk in Mexico City is a particularly elaborate example of the latter (though this may be wrought rather than cast iron). The 1870s
Victoria Embankment
Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London. It runs from the Palace of Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London, and acts as a major thoroughfare ...
in London features particularly ornate examples, with entwined dolphins supporting elaborate lampposts, and benches with sphinxes or camels as end panels.
Gallery
Pont des Arts and the Palais du Louvre, Paris July 2013.jpg, Pont Des Arts, Paris, 1804
Pontcysyllte aqueduct arp.jpg, Pontcysyllte aqueduct
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (; cy, Traphont Ddŵr Pontcysyllte) is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen in northeast Wales.
The 18-arched stone and cast iron structure is for use ...
, North Wales, 1805
Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin.jpg, Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin, 1816
Bastions C and D of the Keep at the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island, Bermuda with two 6 inch RBL Mk VII.jpg, Commissioners House, Bermuda, 1820s
Arden House, Leamington Spa.jpg, Cast iron balcony and railing, Arden House, Leamington Spa, England, 1832
Bourse de commerce, Halle au blé (ancienne) - Vue d'ensemble en cours de construction - Paris 01 - Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine - APMH00012727.jpg, Bourse de Commerce dome, Paris, 1811 (photo 1880s)
Kreuzberg Viktoria Denkmal - panoramio.jpg, Kreuzberg Memorial, Berlin, 1821
Brighton Royal kitchen Nash's Views edited.jpg, Kitchen with palm tree cast iron columns, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, c. 1820
Sayner Hütte, Gießhalle, Blick zum Hochofen.jpg, Sayn Foundry hall, Bendorf, Germany, 1830
Mairie 9 - Balcon -Initiale AA.jpg, Cast iron balcony, town hall, 9th arrondissement, Paris, c. 1830
Montferrand dome design.jpg, St Isaac's Cathedral dome structure, c. 1838
Pevchesky railing.jpg, Pevchesky Bridge, St Petersburg, 1840
Graz Eisernes Haus.L1270411.jpg, '' Eisernes Haus'', 1848, today part of Kunsthaus Graz
The Kunsthaus Graz, Grazer Kunsthaus, or Graz Art Museum was built as part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2003 and has since become an architectural landmark in Graz, Austria. Its exhibition program specializes in contemporar ...
Salle de lecture Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve n07.jpg, Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, Paris, 1843–50
King-Friedrich-August-Tower DSCF0034.JPG, King Frederick Augustus Tower
The King Frederick Augustus Tower (german: König-Friedrich-August-Turm) is the only preserved observation tower of cast iron in Europe and perhaps the oldest tower built of iron. It is located on the ''Löbauer Berg'' at Löbau in Saxony, offering ...
, Löbau, Germany 1852
E.V. Haughwout Building-2.jpg, Haughwout Building, Soho, NY, 1856-7
Section through dome of U.S. Capitol.jpg, U.S. Capitol section, 1859
BNF Richelieu (30929097508).jpg, Salle Labrouste, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1861–68
Watson's-Hotel.jpg, Watson's Hotel, Mumbai, 1869
Mercado Central de Santiago - 860.JPG, Mercado Central, Santiago, Chile, 1869
Clevedon Pier from beach.jpg, Clevedon Pier, England, 1869, cast iron base structure
Sphinx bench by Cleopatra's Needle detail London.jpg, Sphinx bench, Victoria Embankment, London, 1877
Brighton - King's Road - View South on Brighton Bandstand 1884 - July 2009 re-opened.jpg, Brighton Beach Bandstand, Brighton UK, 1884
St. Louis - Cast Iron building.JPG, Cast Iron building St Louis, Missouri
Alexandra Park cast iron fountain.jpg, Cast iron fountain, Alexandra Park, Glasgow, 1901
Bad Kissingen - Gusseiserne alte Sitzbank.JPG, Old cast-iron bench, Bad Kissingen, Germany
Iron-church-St-Stefan-1898.jpg, St Stephen's Bulgarian Church, Istanbul, 1898
4Y1A1444 Saint Petersburg, Russia (34667855440).jpg, Mikhailovsky Garden
The Mikhailovsky Garden ( rus, Михайловский сад) is a large area of parkland and landscape garden in the centre of Saint Petersburg.
The garden was one of the early developments of the city soon after its foundation. Previously it h ...
fence, St Petersburg, 1907
Elgin Bridge, Singapore (1559737390).jpg, Lamps on Elgin Bridge (Singapore)
Elgin Bridge is a vehicular box girder bridge, box girder bridge across the Singapore River, linking the Downtown Core to the Singapore River, Singapore River Planning Area located within Singapore's Central Area, Singapore, Central Area. It was bu ...
, 1929
Woollahra terrace.jpg, Typical Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
iron lace terrace houses in Woollahra, New South Wales
Woollahra is a suburb in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Woollahra is located 5 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Woollahra. W ...
, late 19th century
References
Notes
Bibliography
*Gloag, John and Bridgwater, Derek. ''A History of Cast Iron in Architecture'', London: Allen and Unwin (1948)
*
*Lewis, Peter R. ''Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879'', Tempus (2004)
*Lewis, Peter R. ''Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847'', Tempus (2007)
*Gayle, Margot. ''Cast Iron Architecture in America'', Dover Books (1974)
External links
Cast-iron architecture - The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.Glass, iron and prefabrication: AD 1837-1851 - History of Architecture*
Skidmore/Old Town National Historic Landmark
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cast-Iron Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...