ECK, Ch. Traité de construction en poteries et fer, à l'usage des batimens civils, industriels et militaires. Suivi d'un recueil de machines appropriées à l'art de batir. Dédié à MM. les architectes, officiers du génie, et entrepreneurs de maçonnerie et de serrurerie. Paris, J.C.Blosse 1836
Folio. (vi) + 72 + 21 + (1)pp, 66 engraved plates (numbered 1-51, 1-15). Publisher's scarlet boards, spine repaired. Top corner of lower board beginning to come away. The use of hollow ceramic pots in building had been known about for centuries, but their effectiveness in forming fire-resistant vaults and floors, particularly in combination with a wrought-iron framework, had been truly realised in France only since the 1780s when Victor Louis had used such a system for the vault of the Théâtre Français and the floor of the grand salon in the Palais Royale. Nevertheless, its widespread use had to wait until the 1820s when manufacturing techniques in France were sufficiently advanced to provide large quantities of iron economically. By 1836, however, this method of construction was not only established but its use for fire-proofing all new public buildings in Paris had become compulsory. Eck's treatise, the first on the subject, remains a major source of information on the first generation of French iron architecture. Many of the foremost buildings in Paris are illustrated and discussed and in each case Eck includes the name of the iron manufacturer and the supplier of the pots as well as that of the architect.The work opens with an introduction, including the historical background, demonstrating the superiority of the two materials (in particular lightness and incombustibility) over more traditional methods of building before going on to describe the fabrication of the pots themselves. Eck then looks in detail at the construction of vaults, floors, reinforced beams, partition walls, roof structures and staircases. For vaults he shows, among other examples, Fontaine's chapel at the Palais Royal and the library of J.de Joly's Chambre des Députées, both with iron, and the vault of the Salle Louis-Phillipe in the Chambre des Députés, of pots alone. Floors are classified into four groups of ever-increasing strengths from small-scale domestic floors of pots alone to those with very long spans combining the two materials, such as the 20x10m floor of one of Nepveu's Salles (c.1834) at Versailles, while a further chapter deals with the unusual subject of reinforced or composite beams, where pots were set between pairs of tied wrought-iron arches to increase their load-bearing capacity and stiffness; those illustrated were used in the house of Roussel, an iron manufacturer.Of great interest is the section on roof structures where, of course, iron is indispensible; examples with and without pots are given. There is a detailed description of Labarre's Palais de la Bourse (completed 1826, “le premier pas vers le retour à l'emploi exclusif de matériaux incombustibles pour les édifices publics”) as well as one of Van Cléemputte's Dépôt des Archives de la Cour des Comptes; of note, too, is the description (and excellent illustration) of the influential cast-iron roof structure at Maudslay's Works in London. A final section demonstrates further applications such as a glass-house built by Froelicher, Veugny's Marché de la Madeleine of 1824-1832, and the iron safety curtain at Hittorf and Lecointe's Théâtre Favart.Eck greatly contributed to the increased use and understanding of this form of building technique and many examples, particularly for partition walls, staircases and smaller floors, are taken from his own achievements. He also carried out experiments to establish a theoretical basis for the designing of vaults and floors and his resulting tables of dimensions are included. The treatise as a whole was written to instruct the architect in building technology and for this reason Eck has added a supplement on construction machinery from a desire “de voir les architectes consacrer quelques unes de leurs veilles à l'étude d'une science dont l'application se reproduit chaque jour sous mille formes différentes”. Altogether a remarkable work.
£1750
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