subject: Metals in Building Design [print this page] Metals in Building Design Metals in Building Design
Ever since man has started building grand structures, the quest for new materials for decorative purposes has never waned. There was a time when building relied solely on the structural materials used to impart some form of aesthetic appeal, if there ever was any intention of it to show any beauty at all.
The use of any metal as a decorative material on any building was not too popular. In those early days, collecting the ore, melting it, purifying it and molding it into some form took a lot of effort that it probably would have been better to use the metal for other uses than as an adornment on some building.
However, communities and populations grow. Demand for products grows as well, and as a result, people try new things so they can produce more. The same must have gone for metal products such that new techniques meant more metal produced. As production was able to keep up with demand, any excess metal production must have been turned into something else, hence fanciful works that can be used as adornment.
And after smelting all those ores, they must have found different kinds of metals, each with different properties. Those hard metals must have found their way into utensils and other items of use, while softer ones probably were first discarded since they couldn't be formed into something useful anyway. Maybe some took another look at these soft metals, combined them with one another or with a harder metal, and new materials were discovered.
Iron was probably the first metal which old civilizations found very useful. Being hard, iron could be formed into a number of things like utensils and tools that helped people with their daily lives.
But the non-iron metals, the non ferrous metal that was formerly discarded, probably got a second look and was found to have some characteristics that were better than iron for certain uses.
A non ferrous metal such as copper might be soft, but it never formed rust. Combined with another metal, it formed bronze, which was hammered and formed into utensils so much more easily than iron can be formed.
So this is probably how a non ferrous metal found its way into the decorative aspects of buildings.
