page_title: Joseph Monier
section_title: Further details of career and projects
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Monier / Further details of career and projects
caption_attribution_description: English: Reservoir at the old peoples' home of the Brignole-Galliera Foundation, Clamart, France. Structure by Joseph Monier, architectural design by Prosper Bobin. Built in the early 1890s.
context_page_description: Joseph Monier was a French gardener and one of the principal inventors of reinforced concrete.
context_section_description: Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie is about 5 km north of Uzès and some 30 km north of Nîmes. Joseph was one of ten children born to a family of horticulturists in the service of the duc d'Uzès. All hands being needed in the fields, Joseph was not sent to school. By the age of 17 he had proved his worth as a gardener, and the duke offered him a post at his mansion in Paris. Joseph took the opportunity to attend evening classes and learned to read and write. When friends of the duke began to ask his advice, his horizons widened and he started to make the high-level contacts that were to define his later career. In 1846 he left the duke's service to take up a post at the Tuileries Gardens near the Louvre. Responsible for the orangery, he began to look for a more durable form of container for the orange trees, which were moved from the open air into the greenhouses during the winter. He began to make them of cement (mixed with sand, cinders, and/or crushed firebricks) and reinforced them with a grid of iron rods. There was a general notion at the time that thermal expansion and contraction of embedded iron would rupture the concrete. It seems that Monier spent some years experimenting with his containers in order to prove that this was not the case.
  In an era when municipal water supply systems had not yet been established, Monier realised that his containers could be used for the collection and storage of water for gardens. He continued his education with courses in horticulture and landscape gardening. In 1849, without quitting his post at the Tuileries, he opened a small workshop, and began to take on landscaping projects. These took him as far afield as Strasburg. The fashion at the time was to decorate large gardens with rockeries and grottoes and to form these from plain concrete. For further economy, formed hollow artificial boulders from his ferro-cement (French: "ciment et fer"). He also created small garden pavilions, shaping and carving the concrete surface to imitate the rustic wooden originals. In July 1867 he exhibited his ideas at the second Paris International Exhibition (Exposition universelle). In the same month he applied for his first patent for containers, which was granted as No. 77165. Soon after he applied for an addition covering pipes, and yet another for ornamental pools. His projects included a 20 cubic metre reservoir and a terrace roof. By 1869 his establishment included offices, workshops, and greenhouses, plus stables for eight draught horses and three carriage horses. In September of that year he applied for a patent for panels suitable for cladding buildings, and for use as pavers and tiles.
  In 1870 he suffered a major reversal. Napoleon III had declared war on Prussia with disastrous results. Paris was under siege for 4 months and in December, starving citizens invaded Monier's property and removed everything edible, including the horses. His caretaker died attempting to resist them. In January 1871, the Prussian bombardment ruined what was left. Monier and his family clung on through the severe winter. Though peace was declared in March, the citizens of Paris refused to concede. Monier and his workers started rebuilding the business under the rigours of the Commune.
  As life returned to normal, the business flourished. Monier's reputation spread mainly by word of mouth. He built a large number of reservoir tanks in this period. Although many were small, a tank at Bougival (1872) with a domical roof had a volume of 130 cubic metres. Two tanks of 1000 cubic metres each were built at what is now Bruyères à Sèvres. The two-storey reservoir at Pessac has a 10 cubic metre tank perched above a 20 cubic metre tank, the supporting columns being in the form of tree trunks.
  Monier was careful to check with clients after some years, to ensure that his products had performed well, and to obtain testimonials. His customers included Alphonse de Rothschild, Baron Max de Springer, and Monsieur Tapinart, marquis de Tillière. Most of his projects were concentrated to the west of Paris, where he lived, and especially a
caption: Reservoir at Clamart.
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