The principal research for this study is into the invention and use of Solomit, a compressed straw building plate, which became available when a fibre bale building method also sought to ease the European post-Great War housing shortage. Both methods were patented in France in the early 1920s. Solomit patents registered by Serge Tchayeff in France, Australia, and Britain, and patents for bale building by Emile Feuillette registered in France and the US, are analysed. The vernacular precedents of both are argued. The South Australian patents connected to Solomit and registered during the later 1930s are discussed. This study broadly establishes the history of the initial South Australian venture (1935-1937) to manufacture Solomit under licence from Germany and to establish widespread Solomit construction; it notes Solomit's admission (in principle) to the Building Act 1940 (SA); and identifies examples of government building tenders won by the company. Although certain evidence establishes the naivety of the South Australian enterprise about German socio-political realities of 1933-1937, I consider the possibility that Australian Solomit manufacture may have held political promise for the NSDAP (German Nazi Party) in Australia, and follow an assumption that in South America, strongly influenced by NSDAP Germany, the aggressor exploited Solomit for import-export advantages tenuously connected to building projects. / The study suggests that a likely model for Australian Solomit demonstration building was the artisans' housing proposed in the early 1920s by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965); and it brings forward Tchayeff and Le Corbusier's collaboration in use of Solomit, particularly in building the Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau (1924-1925), thereby emphasising an aspect of this exhibition prototype house previously inadequately exposed. Solomit was manufactured at Berlin from 1929 and was used for urban dwelling extensions and improved thermal insulation. The much wider use of Solomit during the inter-war years, and particularly with the onset of the Great Depression, for German city-peripheral settlements, and in the Weimar Republic and later NSDAP governments' push for Eastlands settlement, is explored. It is probable that in Germany Solomit was overtaken by concurrent and energetically improved efficiencies in building materials and that by the late 1930s little purpose was seen for a material then viewed as regressive. The fate of the South Australian Solomit company showed certain parallels. The relationship of German austerity building of the 1920s to the existing vernacular building methods which were encouraged by government as economical substitutes is explored. These vernacular methods, encouraged by the Republic immediately before Solomit's first production in Germany, are related to Solomit's adoption. Surviving South Australian Solomit houses (built from 1938 to 1961) and other local Solomit constructions (some demolished) are identified. Contrary to some original Australian perceptions, existing Solomit buildings - the walls of which several owners describe as 'hollow' - have generally proved durable. This study maps the extent of South Australian Solomit building; and the penultimate chapter gives to it a pictorial overview. Non-constructional thermal and acoustic Solomit sheeting is currently manufactured in Victoria. Recent Canadian interest in Australian Solomit for its use in fibre bale building suggests a possibly wider future use of Solomit. This study rediscovers Solomit's invention and aspects of its European and Australian use and assessments, and provides a part of the history of a largely forgotten building material. / Thesis (PhDArchitectureandDesign)--University of South Australia, 1998.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267331 |
| Creators | Jolly, Bridget Elizabeth. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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