Realism or Idealism? Tilt-Up Construction Pioneers

Since their construction in the early 1900's, the innovative concrete buildings of architects Irving Gill and R.M. Schindler have indisputably been influential on modern architecture. Although they experimented with many nascent technologies, their use of tilt-up, a site based method of creating concrete walls which was used by these legendary Californian architects to produce highly regarded, highly imaginative architecture is the focus of this arcticle. In this paper, Dr Glass shows that almost 100 years on, the buildings of Gill and Schindler are still of great architectural importance, and that the popularity of the tilt-up technique is still growing.