Zahner's Architectural Metals Series offers in‐depth coverage of metals used in architecture and art today. Metals in architecture are selected for their durability, strength, and resistance to weather. The metals covered in this series are used extensively in the built environments that make up our world and also attract and fascinate the artist. These heavily illustrated guides offer comprehensive coverage of how each metal is used in creating surfaces for building exteriors, interiors, and art sculpture. The series provides architects, metal fabricators and developers, design professionals, and students of architecture and design with a logical framework for the selection and use of metal building and design materials. Forthcoming books in Zahner's Architectural Metals Series will cover steel and zinc surfaces.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data:
Names: Zahner, L. William, author.
Title: Copper, brass, and bronze surfaces : a guide to alloys, finishes, fabrication, and maintenance in architecture and art / L. William Zahner.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, 2020. | Series: Zahner's architectural metals series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019045098 (print) | LCCN 2019045099 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119541660 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119541677 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119541684 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Copper. | Brass. | Bronze. | Architectural metal—work. | Art metal—work.
Classification: LCC TS620 .Z34 2020 (print) | LCC TS620 (ebook) | DDC 739—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045098
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045099
This book is in honor of Salvatore Orlando.
He was a good friend and advocate of the red metal.
The passage of time is reflected in the color of copper.
Of all the metals used in art and architecture, copper is the most engaging.
Throughout history, mankind has had a special relationship with copper. Copper has a weight and feeling of substance. It can be shaped and formed into useful objects, and more importantly, it has an appearance as natural as the colors of an oak forest in the fall: a color that shows value and the passage of time.
Power and force are needed to shape the other metals used in art and architecture. Copper, on the other hand, shapes and moves under the blows of handheld chasing tools. It can be easily folded, curved, stretched, and embossed. One gets close to the metal when working with copper.
Throughout human time copper and copper alloys have played different and expanding roles. Bronze sculptures of ancient deities and heroes have outlived their civilizations, even while resting under the sea for thousands of years. Copper has been mined by every major civilization and converted and cast into both useful tools and decorative statues.
The maritime world embraced copper alloys, particularly brass. Alloys with names such as Admiralty Bronze and Naval Brass recall a time when this metal served as biocladding on the underside of a ship and ornamentation on the top. Consider that the military term “brass” relates to someone of high rank: the one with the brass metals or the brass‐adorned hat.
Copper alloys, both those with new, untarnished surfaces and those with colorful patinas, offer the artist and the designer an amazing palette of color to choose from and design with. Oxide colors will be predictable to a point, but beyond that it is nature that will take over the design. These colors will also act as potent inhibitors of corrosion. But note that both natural, untarnished surfaces and beautiful patinas on art and architecture forms will require something additional—either in the form of a coating or in the form of energy applied from an elbow—to keep them looking good.
I have worked with copper and many of its alloys for decades. I have hammered it, cut it, welded it, and shaped it into beautiful pieces of art. I have experimented with creating color on the surface of the metal with chemical interaction, heat, and selective electroplating. I have worked with friends to cast it and I have formed its sheets to create incredible surfaces.
Copper is special for its amazing ability to be shaped and stretched and for its ability to react with other elements and compounds to achieve a unique and beautiful surface.
Copper can be cast into glass, and the glass accepts it. It can be severely shaped, and it yields to take the new shape. It can withstand the attack of powerful acids and bases, all the while forming a natural mineral surface that slows further reaction while giving a beautiful patina.
This is the third in a series of books on metals used in art and architecture. I have attempted to cover many of the copper alloys that have found their way into use in art and architecture. New and innovative uses of the metal, along with advances in fabrication techniques and a renewed interest in patination, are fueling a renaissance in the use of copper alloys.
It is the surface of copper alloys—the part that interacts with the environment and the part that absorbs and reflects light in unique and special ways—that we find interesting as a material of design. But industry is also looking for ways of capitalizing on the antimicrobial benefits of the copper alloy surface. Tests have proven bacteria and viruses do not thrive and will diminish when in proximity to copper ions.
The corrosion resistant behavior of the copper alloy surface is unmatched. Few corrosive materials can get through the protective behavior of the oxide surface. All of this is an important and essential quality of the metal, but it is the unique color that draws us to it. There is no other metal that comes close to the intense beauty of copper alloys.
The early alchemists associated each of seven metals with a planet. Copper, one of the oldest metals known to man, was associated with the planet Venus, one of ancient man's “wandering stars.” Copper was thought to represent the characteristics of feminine beauty, caring and nurturing, love and lust.
The symbol for copper is the female symbol that is also the symbol for the planet Venus.
The book is intended to give the artist and designer more knowledge about copper, its alloys and this amazing surface. Those who are interested in the metal will acquire information on how to work with the different copper alloys, how they will interact with the environment with time and exposure. Copper and copper alloys have a vast history, but the story is far from over.