How American architects reinvented "liquid stone"

Philadelphia's Society Hill Towers, designed by American architect Ieoh Ming Pei and inaugurated in 1964 © Wikimedia Commons - Roberto Gargiani, an architectural historian and professor at EPFL, has penned a new history of concrete in the United States from 1940 to 1970. Across three volumes, he explores the work of the time's leading architects and reflects on the major breakthroughs that ushered in a new era of design and construction. Condensing one of the major periods of American architectural history into a single book is no easy task. So Roberto Gargiani, a professor at EPFL, wrote three. A New Era of American Architectural Concrete: From Wright to SOM , published by EPFL Press on 18 November, runs to more than 900 pages. "It's huge, like America itself," jokes Gargiani, who heads the Theory and History of Architecture Laboratory 3 (LTH3) . His book explores how, between 1940 and 1970, reinforced concrete came to be a construction material of choice for American architects - in everything from houses to skyscrapers.