—Engineering.
[1] Gross tonnage for steamers; net for sailing vessels.
NEW METHODS OF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION AT PARIS.
During recent years an interesting change has been gradually brought about in the various methods of building construction employed in France, and more especially at Paris, where the size and importance of public buildings and the many-storied houses divided up into flats necessitate special systems of construction, which possess the advantages of combining economy in cost with strength and durability. Parisian architects and builders, although far from approving the extremes to which their American confrères go in the employment of iron for the construction of their somewhat exaggerated sky-scraping buildings, in which the style of architecture employed is often scarcely logical or consistent with the modern methods of construction, are nevertheless obliged to own to the necessity and the utility of employing iron in moderation for the framework of their buildings. Up to the present the use of iron in its ordinary form has chiefly been confined to floors, partitions, and roofs, where, as a rule, its presence is masked by coverings of cement, wood, or stone, except in recent examples of the new style of buildings destined for brasseries or drinking halls, where the iron construction is left visible, and emphasized by means of bronze or color painting and mosaic work, or, again, in the few examples of well known work where the architect has endeavored to obtain a decorative effect by means of iron lintels and columns. But where the use of iron is fast finding favor at Paris is in its employment in combination with other materials such as cement or concrete, and in a special form known as the cement armé systems, in which iron or steel is employed in the form of thick wire, trellis, or light bars embedded in cement or concrete. This method of construction, of which there are three different systems, has for some time been employed in the construction of various buildings of more or less importance, and has given proof of its strength and practical use as well as its advantages when employed for floors, partitions, walls and roof, both as regards its conveniences for internal arrangements, its economy, and as regards the manner in which it lends itself to modern schemes of polychrome decoration.
Two of these systems have been employed by the architect of the new building now being constructed in the Rue Blanche for the Society of Civil Engineers of France. The third system is much employed by M. De Baudot in various buildings designed by this architect, an advocate of rational construction and design and the logical employment of modern building materials. It will be interesting to examine the merits of each system as employed in these buildings, together with any other points of construction worthy of remark.
The building for the Society of Civil Engineers is remarkable from several points of view as regards construction and the arrangement of plan. The façade and plans will appear in the Building News as soon as the work is completed, and will form an interesting subject for comparison with the building recently completed for the English Society of Engineers, and with that about to be commenced at New York for the American Society.
Before entering into a detailed description of the system employed, a summary idea of the plan and general scheme of construction will not be uninteresting. The architect, M. Fernand Delmas, has endeavored to construct the building on economical lines, employing to a large extent iron and those modern materials which have been tried and found fitting as regards suitability and economy; the building will cost £22,000, and it has been made a sine qua non that all the contractors shall be members of the Society of Engineers.
The length of the façade is 100 ft.; the total depth of the building is nearly equal to the frontage; the height from pavement to cornice is 60 ft. The façade is built of solid stonework throughout its length and height. The thickness of the masonry is 24 in. at the lower stories and 18 in. at the upper portion. The façade wall is really the only portion of solid masonry work in the whole building, and forms a decorative mask to the body of the building, which is constructed of a framework of iron. The chief supports of the building proper consist of four framed iron uprights, 16 in. by 16 in. rising from the basement to the roof. These uprights are solidly trussed and held together at the floor levels by strong iron girders supporting the iron joists of the upper floors and the light partitions which divide up each story. This system is at once economical and practical. The whole building is thus self-supporting, and the thick walls which would otherwise be necessary for carrying the upper floors are thus avoided.
