994 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H. 
No. 8.—THE ORNAMENTAL TREATMENT OF TRON 
AND STEEL IN BUILDING WORK. 
By James NANGLE. 
(Read Monday, 10 January, 1898.) 
[ Abstract. | 
(REFERENCE to the remarkable development during the present 
century in connection with the use of iron and steel in ordinary 
building construction.) 
Their use in building works of a purely architectural character 
can, however, only be regarded as successful as far as construction 
is concerned, their treatment esthetically being disapproved by 
lovers of truthfulness in art. 
The large metal structures of the engineer have been more 
successful, these being at least honestly expressive of the materials 
in most instances, and therefore truthful, and often possessing 
an inherent beauty of their own. 
(Reference to the Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, also to the 
Forth Bridge, and to a still more recent progressive example of a 
bridge on the cantilever principle proposed to be erected over the 
Hudson, as examples of truthful construction ; and reference to 
the recent Tower Bridge over the Thames as an example of 
untruthful construction, the steel towers in this case having been 
clothed with an external veneer of masonry designed by an 
architect, the masonry being hung to the steel skeleton, and the 
effect being dissatisfying, as the towers, while appearing to be 
stone, are subjected to stresses which they could not endure if 
they really were what they appear.) 
The tall steel buildings of the United States covered with 
veneers of stone or terra cotta with details of historic styles dis- 
torted in proportions, are similarly architectural frauds of the 
worst kind ; but they are, after all, only the consistent result on 
a large scale of what is practised on a small scale in modern 
architectural work. 
That a style peculiar to metallic construction and yet both 
truthful and beautiful, has not been rapidly evolved, is not a 
matter for surprise, when it is remembered how slow was the 
development through the trabeated styles of the Greeks,—derived 
from the post and lintel timber structures of early times,—to the 
true or genuine use of stone under compression rather than trans- 
verse strain, as in the arched and buttressed architecture of the 
middle ages. 
