[E]xperimental investigation of stresses in a plane structure is of great interest and merit as applied to shells with single curvature (barrel shell… - Eduardo Torroja

Long before... our techniques of today, men could conceive and build structures adapted to the requirements of resistance... because he had observed... the branches of a tree bending under the weight of fruits and the tensioned cords of strings in which children have rocked from time immemorial...

[El Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y del Cemento] had shown that it is possible in Spain to create organizations in which there exists a perfect harmony between different professions, between those above and those below; organizations in which everyone is able to live a life of high human rank, as gentlemen, a life of mutual respect and help and of maximum personal dignity.

Concrete presents, besides a coefficient of , a coefficient of hygroscopic dilation which is more appreciable. While concrete is kept wet... it expands; and as it dries, it contracts, in inverse proportion to the hygroscopic degree of the ambient air. ...The shrinkage ...will vary with the porosity of the concrete and with the thickness used in the structural member. ...Shrinkage is much greater in structures consisting of thin elements subjected to intemperateness of dry climate, and disappears or becomes negligible in underground structures (e.g., foundations).