Cemesto is a sturdy, light-weight,

waterproof Waterproofing is the process of making an object or structure waterproof or water-resistant so that it remains relatively unaffected by water or resisting the ingress of water under specified conditions. Such items may be used in wet environme ...

and fire-resistant composite

building material Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rock (geology), rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materia ...

made from a core of

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...

fiber insulating board surfaced on both sides with

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

and

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

. Its name is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsCelotex Corporation in 1937.Material Name: Celotex

Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, CAMEO website, accessed January 5, 2014 It was manufactured in the form of boards and panels that were wide, about thick, and to long.Frank Lloyd Wright
Around AZ website, accessed October 24, 2008 Each by panel weighs just .Jack Breihan
Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company
, ''DOCONews'', Summer 2008, page 7, DOCOMOMO US (the U.S. working party for DOcumentation and COnservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the MOdern MOvement) Cemesto was used primarily for interior and exterior walls. The John B. Pierce Foundation and Celotex collaborated to develop a

prefabrication Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is u ...

system for building low-cost housing using cemesto panels, in which single cemesto panels were slid horizontally into light

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

en frames to create walls. A prototype cemesto house was displayed at the

1939 World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purcha ...

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 ...

. The Pierce system was first used in 1941 for building employee housing at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company near

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

.House and Yard: The Design of the Suburban Home
in ''Historic Residential Suburbs: Guidelines for Evaluation and Documentation for the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

'', by David L. Ames and Linda Flint McClelland, 2002 For this development, named Aero Acres, the architecture firm of

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...

designed

gable-roof A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

ed Cape Cod houses with dimensions of by , featuring large commercial-style windows in their principal rooms. In 1941 a total of 600 homes were built at Aero Acres using this design. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, when other building materials were in short supply, cemesto was used extensively in the United States. Cemesto was used to build temporary office buildings in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill adapted the Pierce system and used cemesto panels for the designs of some 2,500

pre-fabricated home Prefabricated homes, often referred to as prefab homes or simply prefabs, are specialist dwelling types of prefabricated building, which are manufactured off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled. ...

s, known by the

nickname A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...

"cemestos," erected in

Oak Ridge, Tennessee Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...

, to house

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

workers and their families. In 1942 the U.S. Farm Security Administration built 400 cemesto homes in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

at a site alongside Aero Acres. During the 1940s, the manufacturer of cemesto touted it as a material that would in the future make it possible to

mass-produce Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...

housing at a low cost.The Cemesto Future
Time magazine, May 31, 1943 One use of the material during the post-war era was in the late 1940s in

Circle Pines, Minnesota Circle Pines is a city in Anoka County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 5,025 at the 2020 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Lake Drive ...

, where cemesto panels were used in building the first homes in what was envisioned to be a

cooperative housing A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...

community for

people of color The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the U ...

.Christy DeSmith
A People’s History of Circle Pines
''The Rake'', November 2006 The use of cemesto in Circle Pines came to be regarded as substandard construction, as the builders failed to adequately seal the joints between cemesto panels. Several prominent

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s embraced cemesto as a modern material and used it in their designs. For the Bousquet-Wightman House in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, built in 1941, architect

Donald Barthelme Donald Barthelme (April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American short story writer and novelist known for his playful, postmodernist style of short fiction. Barthelme also worked as a newspaper reporter for the ''Houston Post'', was managing ...

used cemesto panels for exterior sheathing. In 1949

Edward Durell Stone Edward Durell Stone (March 9, 1902 – August 6, 1978) was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s. His works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, the Museo de A ...

called for cemesto panels in the design of a home to be built in

Armonk, New York Armonk is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the town of North Castle, located in Westchester County, New York, United States. The corporate headquarters of IBM are located in Armonk. Geography and climate As of the 2010 census, A ...

. That same year,

Charles Eames Charles Ormond Eames Jr. (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) was an American designer, architect and filmmaker. In professional partnership with his spouse Ray Kaiser Eames, he was responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the field of a ...

designed his

Eames House The Eames House (also known as Case Study House No. 8) is a landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture located at 203 North Chautauqua Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was constructed in 1949, by husband- ...

, Case Study House #8, to use brightly painted and unfinished Cemesto panels in a prefabricated steel frame. Case Study House For 1949
Arts & Architecture magazine, Dec 1949

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

designed the Raymond Carlson House in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

, built in 1950, to use a structural system of

posts and cemesto boards.William Allin Storrer
The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, A Complete Catalog
2002, The University of Chicago Press, , , pages 329–330 In the Arthur Pieper House in

Paradise Valley, Arizona Paradise Valley is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb of Phoenix, the state's largest city. It is Arizona's wealthiest municipality. The town is known for its luxury golf courses, shopping, expensive real estate, and ...

, built in 1952 from

concrete block A concrete masonry unit (CMU) is a standard-size rectangular block used in building construction. CMUs are some of the most versatile building products available because of the wide variety of appearances that can be achieved using them. Tho ...

, Wright used cemesto for the

ceiling A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room. It is not generally considered a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the roof structure or the floor of a story above. Ceilings ...

s.William Allin Storrer
The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, A Complete Catalog
2002, The University of Chicago Press, , , pages 352–353 In addition to houses and office buildings, cemesto was used to build

gasoline station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gaso ...

s and

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

References

{{reflist Building materials Composite materials