The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1889-02-28
Slow-Burning Construction.

Edward Atkinson has a paper on
this subject in the Century, from which
we quote: Strange to say, some of the
worst examples of combustible archi-
lecture are to be found among our
prisons, hospitals, asylums, and aims
(. houses; next among college buildings,
libraries, and schoolhouses; to these
may be added churches, hotels, and
theaters. In the year 1887, according
to the tables compiled by the 'Chroni-
within the limits of the United States
-45 hospitals, asylums, almshouses,
or jails, being nearly four per month,
in many cases accompanied by the loss
of large number of lives; 126 college
buildings and libraries, being ten and
half per month; 146 churches, being
two and eight-tenths per week, 81
theaters and opera-houses, being only
one per week; sis hotels, being one
and four-tenths per day.
The bad construction of these build
ings is due mainly to habit, to fear Of
innovation, and to distrust of theory.
These inherited faults in construction
may be readily traced to their origin.
In order to make this matter plain,
the evolution of the modern factory,
will be fully described in this article.
illustrated by examples of the several
types of buildings which have been
from time to time constructed. When
the textile factory system was first
established, water power only was APP
piled to the movement of machinery.
The larger factories were thus custom
| arily placed in narrow valleys or upon
very limited areas of land, below the
falls of rivers and along le the
streams; it therefore became ccsscry
to economic the area of ground COW
evered by the factories and to build
them many stories in height. When
other arts began to be conducted upon
| the factory system the buildings were
apt to be in cities OF towns where the
price of land forbade large areas being
devoted to the purpose, and, again,
buildings of many stories in height
| were constructed. AS time went on,
| however, steam took the place of
water power, while cheap railway SER
vice or rapid transit made it possible
to scatter the factories over a wider
| area.
Factory buildings then began to be
i constructed in the open country, but
apparently it did not occur either to
the owners, the managers, the archi-
tects, or the builders that the reasons
| for constructing a building many
stories in height did notapply to places
! where land could be had at very low
| price; therefore the customary bad and
| unsuitable form of construction was
adopted and is still practiced where it
is not only useless aud unsafe, but less
adapted to the purpose to which the
building is to be put than a one-story
building would be. Moreover, the
whole method of cutting timber having
been developed with view to the sup
ply of material required in the ordin-
airy unsafe and unsuitable method of
construction, it was for many years
difficult to obtain material cut in a
proper way for what has been called
the slow-burning use of timber Hence
it follows that the art of slow-burning
construction is little known outside
the limits of New England, and until
very lately it was little known even
there except to those who had become
accustomed to the construction of tex
tile factories, paper-mills, and other
works which are custOmarily insured
by the factory mutual insurance COM
panies. 1t is only within very short
time that the methods which have been
practiced for many years in the con-
struction of textile factories-which
are only the old methods of almost pre-
historic time, when timbers were shap-
ed by the AK or by hand, before the
modern saw-mill had rendered the con-
struction of sham building possible
have been taken up by a few archi-
tects of capacity and responsibility to
be applied to warehouses, churches,
college buildings, and occasionally to
dwelling-houses."