Normal Blocks

[EN] The concrete block fi rst saw the light of day around the middle of the nineteenth century, when it began to be produced both in Great Britain and the United States. Although the fi rst patents for solid blocks date back to the beginnings of this century, the fi rst hollow blocks did not appear until 1850, when they began to be produced by Englishman Joseph Gibbs.1 Other patents followed in quick succession, mostly involving isolated experiments that never became standardised or entered into mass production. The evolution of this new material did not really take off until the arrival of other technologies such as Portland cement at the turn of the century.
[ES] El bloque hueco de hormigón nace a mediados del siglo XIX como una alternativa económica al sillar de piedra natural. Con tan humilde origen, el bloque se ennoblece poco a poco de la mano de célebres arquitectos como Frank Lloyd Wright, primero, o Louis I. Kahn, Aldo van Eyck y Herman Hertzberger, después. El presente artículo recorre el camino que dignifica el bloque de hormigón desde su inicial carácter imitativo hasta su normalización constructiva; para atribuirle finalmente, reducido ya a su forma esencial, funciones relevantes e incluso simbólicas.