MATERIALS IN ARCHITECTURE SUPPLEMENT 37
From 19th century roofs to 21st century facades
Jonathan Lowy of VM Zinc traces the architectural history of zinc, from its European origins to a modern role in durable, sustainable building envelopes.
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n 1811, a roofer in Liège tried something radical; he installed the world’s fi rst rolled zinc roof, adapting techniques from lead work to a lighter, more adaptable metal refi ned by the abbot-chemist Jean- Jacques Dony. The fi nancier, François-Dominique Mosselman, soon recognised that a material is only as powerful as the ecosystem behind it. He invested in mines, rolling mills and in 1837 helped found a company whose name
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echoed the ore itself: La Vieille Montagne, “the Old Mountain.” The new company was able to supply this ‘new’ metal at a much larger scale, therefore allowing far more ambitious projects to be specifi ed in zinc.
Paris, redrawn in zinc If Liège proved to be the beginning, Paris proved to be the destiny. Under Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann rebuilt
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Zinc’s high strength to weight ratio and workability made it the natural answer
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