Steel
Sculpture, architecture and design in steel, the strong iron-carbon alloy used for everything from blades to skyscrapers.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for Steel are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
Steel is iron with a controlled amount of carbon, harder than wrought iron and less brittle than cast iron. For centuries smiths made it in small batches: crucible steel from South India and Sri Lanka was prized in the Islamic world for the watered patterns of Damascus blades, and Japanese swordsmiths folded and forged it into refined blades. Only the Bessemer process of the 1850s made cheap steel available in bulk.
Abundance transformed building and design. Steel frames made the skyscrapers of Chicago and New York possible, and Marcel Breuer's tubular furniture of the 1920s brought the material into the home. Stainless steel, developed in the 1910s, added a rust-resistant finish. Anthony Caro bolted and welded painted steel beams and sheets in the 1960s, George Rickey made stainless blades that move in the wind, and Mark di Suvero builds towering compositions from I-beams. Look for welds, bolts, polish or rust.
