In a quiet suburb, north of Paris, by the River Seine, stands a derelict four-story building.
It is apparent that nobody has lived here for quite sometime.
Despite the barbed wire fencing, the property has been vandalized as evident from the graffiti covering the walls.
Its shame that the house is in such a deplorable condition, because this is no ordinary house.
Its a historic monumentthe worlds first house built using reinforced concrete.
Photo credit:Eric Bajart/Wikimedia
Concrete has been around for a long time.
The ancient Romans used concrete to build vaulted roofs, arches and great domes.
Many Roman structures that survive to this day were built with concrete, or had a concrete foundation.
The iconic Colosseum is largely made of concrete.
Modern breakthrough for concrete came in 1824, when a humble English bricklayer named Joseph Aspdin invented Portland cement.
Typical concrete mixes have large compressive strength.
Joseph Monier
Joseph Monier, a French gardener, was among many who noticed this.
for strengthen the concrete containers, he reinforced them with embedded iron meshes.
But Monier proved otherwise.
Joseph Monier would become one of the biggest promoters of reinforced concrete.
He exhibited his invention at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and took out a patent the same year.
Francois Coignet was an industrialist who owned a chemical plant in Lyon along with his brother.
He moved to Saint-Denis, a neighborhood in Paris in 1851, and opened a cement factory.
This four-story house built in 1853 was the first iron reinforced concrete structure anywhere.
The roof was made of iron joist encased in concrete.
For years the house was occupied by squatters and was a den of illegal activities.
It isestimatedthat rehabilitating the house would cost 2 million euros.
