Twentieth Century Building Materials

History

Michael Tomlin sees the development of American building practice as evolutionary, not revolutionary. The two major new compelling factors added to the historic scarcity and high cost of skilled labor he suggests are:

Lower costs.

National distribution, broadening markets.

New technology is largely developed as a substitute for existing technology. (Most products are market-oriented, developed for an established need)

Changing manufacturing techniques

Traditional manipulation of building materials by mechanical means.

Sawn, planed, shaped, nailed.

New materials were ground, mixed, heated, pressed largely working with a plastic media that could be molded.

Depends much more on the adhesive binders.

New materials standardized through product trade organizations

American Plywood Association, now retitled as the Engineered Wood Association.

1. Founded in 1933 as the Douglas Fir Association

Gypsum Association

1. Founded in 1930.

Standards and Testing

Product Standards and mechanisms for testing were developed for new products and materials.

American Society for Testing and Materials.

Underwriter’s Laboratories.

Consumer products testing since 1894.

Universal Hydraulic Testing Machine

Government interventions into manufacturing sector

Recommendations in World War I

Military applications create new materials and product lines with domestic applications.

Phenolic resin laminate. (formica).

Plywood.

Problems of oversupply.

Government financial backing in building trades created regulations that favored one product line over another.

FHA. Home owners Loan Corporation preferred gypsum over fiberboard because of its fire resistance.

Plastics and Synthetics

Invented in 1930s, but mass use becomes important in post World War II.

Polyvinyl Chlorides, and extruded products.

1960s sees the shift from poly-sulfides to urethanes and silicones.