From Cedar Longhouses to Mass Timber High Rises

Since the earliest civilizations, humans have been using wood to construct dwellings, places of worship, and many kinds of daily-use goods and tools. This chapter provides a historic timeline of key moments in solid or massive wood construction, from the earliest buildings to recent wood structures. Greek temples and palaces, like the Acropolis in Athens, are known today as massive stone structures with solid masonry blocks for walls, lintels, and shaped round stone drums to build up columns. Gothic and medieval builders in Europe and many other regions worldwide continued the tradition of building walls in stone and roofs in wood, especially for larger buildings like castles and churches. Wood was still the material of choice for housing and cost-efficient industrial buildings since steel required masonry encapsulation to provide fire protection. The construction industry is going through a transition with mass timber, and transitions take time and effort.