Plain old concrete—undeniably useful and popular though it may be—is really not as spectacular a material as you might at first think. Yes, It is good for making good, hard pavements and keeping fence- posts firmly in place in the ground, but if you are hoping to build « multistory car park out of it, or an overpass that runs above a busy motorway, you will quickly discover that concrete itself is not enough.
In the 1860s, however, French gardener Joseph Monier (1823-1906) demonstrated the reinforced garden tubs he had made using ferroconcrete—a concrete and chicken-mesh combination that fellow Frenchman Joseph-Louis Lambot had pioneered. The garden tubs made their debut at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and Monier applied for a patent the same year. Monier was not the first to think of strengthening concrete with metal, but his patent design clearly established the principle of reinforced concrete for structural purposes.
Monier continued to apply for and secure patents throughout his career, all of which followed along strangely similar lines. They included the 1868 patent on iron-reinforced cement pipes; the 1869 patent on iron-reinforced cement panels for building facades; and the 1873 patent for the construction of bridges and footbridges made of iron-reinforced cement.
Reinforced concrete—still prevalent today, with 35 cubic feet (1 cubic m) of the stuff used for every person on the planet in 2006 alone—has undergone various improvements since its invention and is now used in all sorts of constructions—from street lights and swimming pools to dams and viaducts.
