Toward Structural Prefabrication: Henry Lossier’s hangars, 1917-22

At the beginning of the 20th century, the growing demand for aircraft hangars drove engineers and architects to devise a range of solutions for these storage facilities. Following the building of structures in steel and wood to be covered with tarpaulin, fiber-cement panels or wooden planks, there was a general shift to reinforced concrete, allowing a single material to be used for constructions that were fireproof, waterproof and rapid and cheap to build. The configuration of the hangar was designed to span very large spaces without intermediate supports and entailed various types of vaulted roofs. The ones developed by Henry Lossier between 1917 and 1922 consisted of slender rods and tiles, and competed with the monolithic vaults proposed in the same years by Etablissements Limousin et Cie, Christiani & Nielsen and Perret Frères. The essay outlines for the first time the evolution of Lossier’s hangars, analyzing their structures and retracing the phases of construction from the casting of concrete to prefabrication of the pieces, against the backdrop of a process of improvement that led to the taking out of patents.