Concrete Gets Glamorous in the 21st Century.

The article informs that splendor of the Pantheon in Rome, attributed to Emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus Hadrian, lies in both its architectural form and its engineering virtuosity: a rational domed cylinder of reinforced concrete that soars to a height that equals its diameter, reaching 143 feet at its oculus. Thanks to Joseph Aspdin's invention of portland cement in 1824 and Joseph Monier's introduction of the reinforcing bar in 1867, the 20th century was an era of intense technological progress in both concrete and steel. Trial-and-error engineering no longer takes place on-site or requires knowledge of precedent. So extensive is the innovation in concrete that now a discussion of the material requires a new vocabulary of modifiers. INSET: Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete.