It would have been a cheaper and more durable way to build. One has to conclude that it was the newness that was counter to the beliefs that they were trying to support with their architecture. Society doesn't just express itself in the spires of cathedrals and the cupolas of city halls and the dentiled cornices of row houses. It also says something about itself through the materials it chooses to shelter its families, house its institutions, and conduct its industries. Looking for what happened to his plastic house, Curtis, now a freelance writer in Eastport, Maine, discovered instead a complex ecology of materials.
New technology is a nurturing soil, and germinating turns out to be the easy part.
Like trees in the forest, though, materials need to make it to the sunlight to thrive.