Reinforced Concrete and the Turner Construction Company - They Changed the World
I find architecture and construction fascinating. This story is about Brooklyn, but building with reinforced concrete is international. So is Turner Construction.
(Austin Nichols warehouse (now apartments), Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photo: Jim Henderson for Wikipedia)
Imagine living in the far future, able to look back in time and watch when Roman engineers came up with the arch, or medieval church builders developed the flying buttress. Impressive stuff there- some of the foundations of modern Western architecture.
Centuries later, the greatest innovations can be of a more humble nature. Did those early developers of reinforced concrete knew their experimentation would also change architecture?
Their work made it possible to build higher, larger, and more inventively than anyone could imagine. It began in France in the 19th century, but it would take an American company, based in New York City, to build wonders across the world. This company had its first job here in Brooklyn.
The Roman first started using concrete, but its use languished over the centuries, with stone and wood being much more readily available. It wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that European engineers and builders began experimenting with it again.
(Coignet Building in construction. Illustration via Archipages)
The Early Days of Reinforced Concrete
François Coignet is generally credited with this new interest in cast and reinforced concrete. In 1853, he built a four story reinforced concrete house in a Paris suburb. His methods would inspire the creation of the Coignet Company in Brooklyn, the first American company to produce and market cast concrete using his methodology.
Other 19th century innovators took his work, improved and amplified it. One of them was an English-born engineer and architect named Ernest Ransome. His father, Frederick, had patented his own manufactured stone in 1844, in England.
The younger Ransome came to the United States in the 1870s, settling in San Francisco. There he patented a method of laying reinforced concrete sidewalks in the 1880s. He took that idea, and began experimenting with ways of using reinforced concrete in building construction.
(Ernest Ransome, via Wikipedia)
It was Ernest Ransome who came up with the design of twisted rebar, the basis of all reinforced concrete building construction. The twist makes the steel even stronger, and reinforces the bond between concrete and steel.
Reinforced concrete is such a versatile building material because of the relationship between the concrete and the steel.
Concrete, on its own, can be as hard as stone, but it is brittle. Steel is also quite sturdy, but it is tensile; that is, it can move and adjust to outside pressures.
When the cement in the concrete hardens and adheres to the roughened surfaces of the steel, that union permits the stresses on the concrete to be transferred to the steel.
Extrapolated out to a high rise, or a building of unusual shape, the stress loads within the reinforced concrete are transferred equally throughout the structure, making for a building that is extremely sturdy, allowing for exceptionally tall buildings, and graceful space-age and organic shapes.
Ransome’s work with reinforced concrete gained more and more approval and interest. The possibilities of this material were staggering. As new graduates of engineering and architectural programs left their universities, many young innovators were drawn to the ideas being developed in this field.
One of them was a recent Swarthmore graduate named Henry Chandlee Turner. He received his degree in civil engineering, and went to work at Ernest Ransome’s firm. He was employed there for over ten years, helping to develop this new building technology.
In 1886, Ransome built several overpass bridges in Golden Gate Park, as well as two experimental buildings on the campus of Stanford University. The bridges were the first reinforced concrete bridges in the country. All of the structures survived the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, while everything else around them collapsed.
In 1903, he built the 15 story Ingalls Building in Cincinnati, Ohio, considered the first reinforced concrete skyscraper. It still stands. By that time, Henry Turner had left the company, and was out on his own.
(1 Main Street, one of 6 Gair buildings in DUMBO. Photo: Suzanne Spellen)
Turner Construction Company’s Early Years
Henry Turner started his construction company in New York with a nest egg of $25,000. His offices were at 11 Broadway, right in the heart of Lower Manhattan, where an entirely new landscape was about to go up. Turner wanted to be at the heart of it, and he knew reinforced concrete would be the wave of the future.
His first job, however, was less than the impressive start he may have wanted. He was hired to construct a concrete vault for Brooklyn’s Thrift Bank. He was paid $687.00.
But a year later, his efforts began to pay off big time. He landed a construction job with Robert Gair, in what is now Dumbo. Scotsman Gair had made a fortune manufacturing boxes and the equipment that made and folded them. His corrugated cardboard boxes were used by just about every form of industry there was, from food to widgets.
Gair moved his operations from Manhattan to Brooklyn, and through the recommendation of his son, hired Turner to build a new reinforced concrete factory building. The architect was William Higginson.
He had to be convinced about reinforced concrete, but when he saw the light, he used it on all of the Gair buildings, as well as buildings for other clients. He also worked with Turner on all of them.
In 1904, Turner Construction finished the first reinforced concrete buildings for Gair, this one at 41-49 Washington Street. Several more floors were added over the years, and the top floors became the headquarters for the Gair Company.
At the same time, Turner was also working on a large contract for one of the new subway lines. They needed stairs to access the platforms from the street, as well as the platforms themselves. Originally, they were all supposed to be iron and steel, but Turner suggested reinforced concrete.
Successful tests were conducted to prove the worth of concrete. Using that information, Turner vastly underbid for the job, and got it. His company built over 50 train station platforms and stairs for the Interboro Rapid Transit line, the IRT.
Turner Construction never looked for work again. Reinforced concrete as the building material of the future, took off like a rocket. All across the country, architects, engineers and builders began designing and building using reinforced concrete. Buildings from garages to factories to skyscrapers were built in concrete.
(Photo via Brooklyn Eagle, 1919)
Since Henry Turner’s first job was in Brooklyn, it’s only fitting that one of his largest was also here – building the massive U.S. Army Supply base in Sunset Park, in 1919, in its day, the largest reinforced concrete building in the United States.
Turner and many of his company’s officers and workers also lived in Brooklyn. He and his wife and son lived at 28 Monroe Place in Brooklyn Heights. Ironically, that house no longer stands.
By 1919, his company had built over 150 buildings in Brooklyn. If it’s reinforced concrete from around this time period, chances are Turner built it.
Turner, as the pre-eminent builder in this medium was sought out for all of the largest projects. Within ten years of its founding, they had branches in Philadelphia, Boston and Buffalo. More would follow. In its first 15 years of business, Turner Construction completed $35 million in work, constructing buildings for many of the country’s largest corporations.
(Bush Terminal buildings, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Photo: Bridge and Tunnel Club)
Henry Turner stepped down in 1941. His brother, Archie took the helm of the company, but only for a few years, he died in 1946. The company leadership then went outside the family to former Admiral Ben Moreel, the creator of the Seebees. Four months later, he stepped down, and the leadership of the company went to Henry Turner’s only son, Henry Chandlee Turner, known as Chan.
The company opened more branches in other cities and greatly expanded their work and scope. They took the company public in 1972, trading on the NY Stock Exchange. By 1977, they broke the $1 billion dollar mark.
In 1999, the company was purchased by Hochtief AG, a German construction company. Today, Turner Construction has 46 offices in the United States, and projects in over 20 countries around the world. They average 1,500 projects a year, with billions of dollars of work.
That’s a long way from the reinforced concrete vault built by a young Henry Turner in the basement of Pratt Institute’s Thrift Bank.
(Rockwood Candy Factory, Wallabout, Brooklyn. 1917. Photo; Brooklyn Life)
Some Important Brooklyn Buildings - Turner Built
Turner Construction built some of world’s most iconic buildings. The list would be a post on its own, so I’ve only included some of the many Brooklyn buildings constructed by Turner over the years, concentrating on those built while Henry Turner was still alive.
Gair Buildings(6+) –Dumbo
Bush Terminal Buildings (22 buildings built by Turner) - Sunset Park
Austin Nichols Company – Williamsburg
Pioneer Warehouses – Flatbush Ave, Downtown
William Becker’s Aniline and Chemical Works- Canarsie
Sperry Gyroscope Company- Flatbush Ave, Downtown
Rockwood Chocolate Company Expansion- Wallabout
Brooklyn Army Terminal- Bay Ridge
Army and Navy Building- Brooklyn Navy Yard
South Brooklyn Naval Supply Base- Sunset Park
A.Schraeder’s Sons - Atlantic Ave, Fort Greene
American Can Company – Gowanus
Perika Chocolate Factory – Crown Heights North
American Safety Razor Co. – Downtown Brooklyn
26 Court Street – Brooklyn Heights
Squibb Buildings (3) – Brooklyn Heights
Turner Towers – Prospect Heights
15 story warehouse – Brooklyn Navy Yard
Schaefer Brewing Co. – Williamsburg