'Jusqu'où s'étendra l'emploi du fer en architecture?': 19th and 20th century discourses on the use of iron in architecture

The use of iron in architecture - thus in the built environment - has been in both the 19th and the 20th century the subject of discussions by architects, engineers, art historians, philosophers and writers. Through analysis of a series of texts written by architects and engineers - the Belgian engineer Arthur Vierendeel in particular - this paper tries to point out they were concerned with the way future architecture should look like and which aesthetic possibilities iron could assign to it.