"Marsá" reinforced concrete beams and their application in Spanish agricultural industrial architecture

Abstract

Agustín Marsá Prat registered several patents between 1941 and 1956. These included a patent for a reinforced concrete roof-beam that he designed with the intention of replacing expensive iron beams which were so difficult to purchase at the time. His concrete beams were proposed as a low-cost, lightweight reinforced concrete structural system, which required little skilled labour and had a striking aesthetic effect. Known today as “Marsá” truss beams or as reinforced concrete truss beams with braces, they were commonly used in industrial buildings related to the agri-food sector.