Selected Bibliography Architecture - Form Space and Order | Page 312

S T RUC T URA L P ROP ORT I ON S

The proportions of other structural elements, as bearing
walls, floor and roof slabs, vaults, and domes, also give us
visual clues to their role in a structural system as well as
the nature of their material. A masonry wall, being strong
in compression but relatively weak in bending, will be thicker
than a reinforced concrete wall doing the same work. A steel
column will be thinner than a wood post supporting the same
load. A four-inch-thick reinforced concrete slab will span
farther than four-inch wood decking.
As a structure depends less on the weight and stiffness
of a material and more on its geometry for stability, as in
the case of a membrane structure or a space frame, its
elements will get thinner and thinner until they lose their
ability to give a space scale and dimension.

Wood and Brick
Schwartz House, Two Rivers, Wisconsin, 1939, Frank Lloyd Wright

Membrane
Roof of Olympic Swimming Arena, Munich, Germany, 1972, Fred Otto

Steel
Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, 1956, Mies van der Rohe

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