Opération Béton: Constructing Concrete in Switzerland
Author / Producer
Date
2021
Publication Type
Doctoral Thesis
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
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Abstract
By studying approximately a century of cement and concrete in Switzerland, this
project examines the relations between institutions, discourse, and technology as
they intersect in the material. The project is framed so that the establishment of
organizations, ideas, and techniques from the late 19th century through the end of
the interwar period are shown to have enabled the mass deployment of concrete
in the Postwar period.
The study begins with an institutional history of material testing and production,
looking at the establishment in 1880 of the Institute for the Testing of Building
Materials (now EMPA) and the formation of the cement cartel EG Portland in
1910 as two key institutions for structuring the cement industry. The central part
is a discourse history tracing notions of solidity— the ability to endure through
time, monolithic construction, and resistance to disaster—that were important for
promoting concrete as well as understanding how to build with it. In this section,
each rhetorical argument is approached through a key object: the Kunststein of
Gustav Gull’s renovation of the ETH Hauptgebäude, the Zementhalle of the
1939 Swiss National Exhibition, and the Sonnenberg highway tunnel and civil
defense shelter in Lucern. The final part looks first at a specific technical change
to wet mix concrete and later at the broader, territorial ramifications of a flowing
material through the example of the Dixence dams.
Over the period of study, concrete went from being a material used occasionally
to one that is ubiquitous, an occurrence that forms the major arc of this project.
Drawing primarily from professional journals and archival material, the project
shows how concrete—organizationally, technically and conceptually—broke with
previously held notions of scarcity and became a material without limit.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Contributors
Examiner : Stalder, Laurent
Examiner : Forty, Adrian
Examiner : Slaton, Amy
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
ETH Zurich
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
ARCHITECTURE; SWITZERLAND (CENTRAL EUROPE). SWISS CONFEDERATION; Concrete; Architectural History
Organisational unit
03715 - Stalder, Laurent / Stalder, Laurent