In some areas of Southern
Europe among architects is widespread a material launched in the 30s b
y
the United States Steel Corporation, patented
under the name Cor-Ten (originally, a low alloy steel
with 0.2 -0.5 % copper, 0.5-1.5% chromium and
0.1-0.2% phosphorus).
Born as a material able to self-protect from electrochemical corrosion, it changed over the
years, in order to obtain good structural properties
(yield strength up to 580 MPa), both characteristics
that
have convinced many designers to use it, for
example, for bridges’ building, first in the United States Europe .
Recently architects committed to civil building
urban design and other decorative applications began
to use the Cor-Ten steel (in the United States
weathering steels) both for the belief of using
a high strength material and without maintenance, and
for its aesthetic appearance, regarded as the
result of a “natural” aging and thus inherently “real” or
“true”, and not artificially produced or modified by
man as some industrial processes for surface
decoration.
Unfortunately, some of these features are more
the result of a well-designed communication rather than the result of the analysis of objective figures.
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