Changing Cultures European Perspectives on the History of Portland Cement and Reinforced Concrete, 19th and 20th Centuries

Introduction

1.1 The Reception of Cement and Reinforced Concrete in Portugal Before 1935

1.2 From Patent to Standard: Accommodating Change in Britain’s Use of Building Materials, 1824–1934

1.3 The First Modern Concretes and the Rise of New Aesthetic Paradigms in 19th-Century France

1.4 Institutions Within a New Material: Early Reinforced Concrete in Switzerland and Germany

1.5 The First Patents for Reinforced Concrete: The Origins of the 20th-Century Construction Revolution in Spain

1.6 Belgium’s international reputation in the history of concrete: Blaton, Christophe, Franki, Hennebique, Magnel and others

1.7 Reinforced Concrete in Italy: From its Origins to the Second World War

2.1 British Public Works Contracting 1730–1880

2.2 The Belgian Company Blaton: From the Trade of Cement to the International Promotion of Prestressed Concrete, 1865–1954

Bernard Espion, Rika Devos, Michel Provost

2.3 Rodolfo Stoelcker: A German Engineer-Contractor in Italy in the First Half of the 20th Century

2.4 Public Works Contractors in Antwerp in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Inge Bertels, Jelle Angillis

2.5 Portuguese Public Works Contractors During the Estado Novo (1933–1974): From Conjunctural Singularities to Common European Practices

Biography

João Mascarenhas-Mateus is Principal Researcher at CIAUD - Research Centre for Architecture, Urban Planning and Design, Lisbon School of Architecture, University of Lisbon, since 2015. PhD in Civil Engineering (IST, Technical University of Lisbon, 2001); MSc in Architecture (RLICC, KULeuven - Belgium, 1992). From 2015 to 2020, he was awarded a research contract of excellence (FCT -Portuguese Research Foundation Researcher). During that time, he directed the research project "From Lime to Portland Cement. Construction History and Building Cultures in Contemporary Portugal" (http://ptbuilds20.fa.ulisboa.pt/). At present, he is leading a project to build a digital knowledge platform for Portugal Construction History, during the 19th and 20th centuries (http://portugalbuilds.org/), also funded by FCT.

He organized in 2010 and 2015 the First and Second Portuguese Conferences on the History of Construction in Portugal. He was one of the coordinators of the Organizing Committee of the First and Second International Congresses on Luso-Brazilian Construction History (2013 and 2016). He is the founder (since 2015), former president (2018-2021) and present vice-president of the Portuguese Society for Construction History Studies (SPEHC), and a member of the editorial committee of the International Journal of the Construction History Society (Cambridge, UK). He was the chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 7th International Congress on Construction History (7ICCH, Lisbon 2021).