In 1893, the famous winged statue of Eros was erected in London’s Piccadilly Circus. Made of elegant cast aluminium, it became an iconic symbol of the city and is now one of its best loved attractions. In 1898, the dome of San Gioacchino’s Church in Rome was clad in aluminium sheets, which are still in pristine condition today, more than 100 years later. The stunning Art Deco-inspired Empire State Building in New York was the first building to use anodised aluminium components back in 1931. More recently, aluminium was used in the construction of the Pyramide du Louvre in Paris (1989) and for the facades of the European Parliament in Brussels (1995), which contain around 1000 tonnes of aluminium.
Aluminium is now utilised for a host of applications in building and construction and is the material of choice for curtain walling, window frames and other glazed structures. It is extensively used for rolling blinds, doors, exterior cladding and roo-fing, suspended ceilings, wall panels and partitions, heating and ventilation equipment, solar sha-ding devices and complete prefabricated buildings. Structures like offshore living quarters, helicopter decks, balustrades, scaffolding and ladders, are also commonly made of aluminium.
