Coignet, François

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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b. 1814

d. 1888

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French pioneer in the development of the structural use of iron reinforcement of concrete.

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As early as 1847, Coignet built some houses of poured (unreinforced) concrete, but in 1852, in a house at 72 rue Charles Michel, in St Denis, he first employed his own system of what he called béton armé, meaning reinforced concrete. Coignet exhibited his technique of reinforcement using iron bars at the Paris Exposition of 1855 and was quoted as forecasting that cement, concrete and iron were destined to replace stone. A year later he patented a method of reinforcing concrete with iron tirants, a reference to the metal ropes or bars being under tension, and in 1861 he published a treatise on concrete. Coignet is credited with building several examples of concrete shell casing to iron structures in conjunction with different architects—e.g., the Church of Le Vésinet (1863, Seine et Oise).

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Further Reading

Nikolaus Pevsner, 1984, Pioneers of Modern Design, Penguin.

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