The session is centered on the history of methods of formwork and new concretional materials conceived and experimented in Europe and territories under its influence, from the 15th century to the beginning of the First World War. These building systems aimed to replace traditional lime-based masonries and other materials such as ceramics, carpentry, or iron, for reasons of economy, durability, and mechanical resistance. The new processes could obtain monolithic objects or cast on-site constructions adopting the shape of the formworks in which materials had been compressed and agglomerated, manually or mechanically.

These innovations led to new architectural and artistic horizons based first on the resurgence and improvement of ancient vernacular techniques such as rammed earth, used by European neoclassical architects at the end of the 18th century. In the industrial era, ordinary or "agglomerated" concrete, concurrently with cast iron and laminated steel, eventually led to reinforced concrete and the gradual revelation of its full plastic nature and potential. These developments established a new architectural paradigm explored widely all over the world.

Early concretes had important links to improvements in various scientific fields. They encouraged imaginative uses and possibilities, drawing on new ambitions, aspirations, ideologies, and utopias. They suggested alternatives to the traditional masonry of stone or brick blocks and open the doors to walls and pillars free of orders and of the principle of compression of their structural elements. Alternative relationships with materiality were proposed, revealing also a form of agentivity, a kind of independent life of the new materials.

Talks :

• Jean-Pierre VAN STAËVEL - Matériaux coffrés et expression de la matérialité dans l’Occident musulman médiéval et moderne (VIIIe-XVIIIe siècles)
• Antonio BRUCCULERI - Comprendre l’architecture de l’Antiquité : les maçonneries coffrées et la construction romaine entre France et Italie au siècle des Lumières
• Laurent KOETZ - La nature en ciment : les brevets d’invention des rocailleurs dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle
• Emmanuel MILLE - Le pisé de terre, matériau des pionniers du développement urbain de Lyon au XIXe siècle
• Corentin GEAY - Le mâchefer dans la construction dans la région Rhône-Alpes (1850-1950)
• Cédric AVENIER - Topologie d’un matériau brut : les bétons d’Auguste Perret
• Juan Pablo PEKAREK - Les bétons armés Hennebique, les architectes « Beaux-Arts » et ingénieurs « centraliens » à Buenos Aires (1905-1918)