Advanced cementitious materials for contemporary architecture

No building technology challenged the architecture like the sequence of successful innovations which fostered the modern history of concrete. Anything but exhausted by the 19° century key innovations –like Portland cement and steel reinforced concrete- in last decade this capital building technology has, however, entered a new innovation cycle. Thanks to the advancement in the science of materials, concrete has become a flexible, colored, or even “transparent” element, without loosing its structural purposes. A further and even more revolutionary change is now happening: the progress achieved in nanosciences makes available the manipulation of the deepest structures of matter, in order to create tailor-made microscopic compounds, entirely artificial, but performing almost as the natural ones. It opens an amazing new deal for concrete’s constituent components, ranging from the creation of innovative cementitious composites reinforced by various fibers, to the addition of microscopic aggregates particle, able to substantially modify the concrete properties andperformances. Like in the last century, again the innovations in concrete technology push the Architecture to exploit new possibilities, to redefine its objectives and, sometimes, its methods too.