Concrete, Peter Collins's first book, is an avowedly polemical and controversial combination of two studies: the origins and evolution of reinforced concrete and the life and work of the seminal French architect, Auguste Perret.
"This is exemplary historical writing, readable, compact, shrewd, and full of new material. We have to thank Peter Collins for having produced a first complete pre-history of reinforced concrete that looks as if it will be very difficult to supersede ... No one who appreciates good scholarship, good writing and cogent argument could fail to take pleasure in all but a few pages of the book." Reyner Banham in The Architectural Review, 1960
