Contributions appreciated

"The First World War brought Freyssinet many military commissions including a series of aircraft hangars at Istres, Bouches-du-Rhone in 1917 and these twin dirigible sheds which were built at Orly between 1916 and 1924. As with Eiffel's career, Freyssinet's genius resided as much in his constructional method as in his prowess with a given structural technique. In these paraboloid arches, he demonstrated for the first time his mastery of moving formwork for the casting of in-situ concrete. These 300-foot-wide, 200-foot-high vaults were each built in two stages. The first stage consisted of 55 feet high springing, cast in place as an integral part of the reinforced foundations on either side of the hangar. The fully 'folded' and partly glazed concrete shell arch cast above this springing was built by adding one V-shaped rib at a time. These ribs were cast into movable plywood moulds which in their turn were supported by a mobile timber formwork, 7.5 meters wide... These remarkable forms, each 915 feet long were destroyed at the end of the Second World War."

— Kenneth Frampton and Yukio Futagawa. Modern Architecture 1851-1945. p204.

"The development of reinforced concrete continued with the structures and research of Eugène Freyssinet... In 1913 he planned, and between 1916 and 1924 constructed, the first eight hangers at the airport at Avord (Cher), bringing together the trend in development of architectural engineering and flight technology, which went far beyond the more metaphorical relationships in the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Graham Bell, and Gustave made a new architectural concept possible with regard to space.

"A commission for 31 more hangars followed the first eight at Avord, securing extensive success for this type of building...Modern technology lead to a new concept of construction, where each part of the parabolic form of the roof becomes an active vehicle of energy. Here the traditional architectural form of the box has been overcome in favor of a dynamic form of open space and in totally different way... — a new form of dynamic open space had replaced the traditional limitations of architecture."

— from Udo Kultermann. Architecture in the 20th Century. p25-27.