"The term 'works' itself may be made to include plants for producing on a large scale every article made for the use of man or beast. "Engineering Magazine, 1904.

'The Works' is an excellent ground breaking study of American Industrial Architecture. It will be of interest to architectural historians, higher and secondary education pupils and students of architecture, technology and design. Generally, Industrial Architecture has had a minor part in the overall history of architecture. Perhaps, this is because Industrial Architecture demands a certain type of analysis which includes the manufacturing process as well the building product.

'The Works' rightly recognises that factories led the way in innovative building design and technology in the period 1840-1940 and factories were very important in the development of Modem Architecture. In the 1920's, the great pioneer of Modern architecture, Le Corbusier, identified the first fruits of the Espirit Nouveau in factories and silos. In Vers une Architecture he recognised the Zeitgeist of the machine age and the functional tradition, so inherent in the design of factories, silos, liners, aeroplanes and cars. Visual comparisons were made between palaces and factories. The buildings represented in 'The Works' are all part of an unrecognised early modernism; an essentially undecorated style of industrial architecture. These many American factories are to be compared with The Sheerness Navel Dockyard of 1858, The Albert Dock and Oriel Chambers in Liverpool, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building in Buffalo of 1904 and Behrens Turbine Factory in Berlin of 1909. In these American industrial factories we find the genus of today’s contemporary 'high-tech' ; i.e., an architectural style subject to the purification of the machine.

It is to be expected that many American innovations were developed from trans-Atlantic origins. During this period architectural pattern books did not address industrial buildings; consequently factories were largely designed by engineers. The British Engineer Sir William Fairbairn had a major impact on factory and mill design and American engineers visited many British and European industrial sites.

'The Works' includes numerous examples of industrial innovations and modernist precedents. The first windowless or controlled conditions plant in the USA, at Simonds Saw & Co. is featured. The use of the modernist trademark glassblocks is recorded in the high-low bay roof of the Rayon Corporation. The Ballinger & CoYarn Mill, an all windowless Daylight building of 1922, was a major innovation, along with The Buffalo Foundry & Plant which was made largely of glass; spectacular when viewed from the outside at night.

The development of the windowless wall, a radical idea, was based on importing British Steel sash windows; available in Britain long before the USA. The use of iron components in European industrial buildings, which began in the 18th. C., included some notable examples that may have influenced. construction in America. In the area of 'power' generated buildings we find many examples. In the 1840's the Electric driven travelling crane had been developed in England and Scotland and the US Navy studied their use in dockyards and ironworks in Britain. The first Power Building with electric power plant was introduced into New York Navel Yards in 1896.

The development of electric power enabled vertical craneways to be incorporated into factories, such as the Studebaker Plant, Indiana, serving four storey reinforced concrete loft buildings. Equally, the need for fire-resistant materials, resulted in the introduction of hollow terra-cotta tiles. (Now making a come back in contemporary architecture). The first use of terra-cotta tiles, enclosing the walls of a steel framed foundry building was The Electric Building for the Westinghouse Corporation.

'7'he Works', with its account of revolutionary transfer of trans-Atlantic technology, electric powered architecture and sublime industrial spaces would be an excellent addition to any library that might already include; Pioneers of Modern Design from William Morris to Walter Gropius by Nikolaus Pevsner (1936), Buildings and Power, Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modem Building Types by Thomas A.Markus (1993),A Concrete Atlantis by Rayner Banham (1989), Industry and Technology; a visual history of Modem Britain by W. H. Chaloner and A.E.Musson (1963),Factories, a Batsford History Kit by Hugh Bodey (1975). 'The Works' should certainly be recommended reading for secondary students and undergraduate students of architecture, design and technology.