The numbers game - 50 - 5,000

At the start of the 20th century we used around 50 materials to construct our buildings. These were invariably natural materials which required relatively little processing - wood, stone, slate, clay, ash, glass, flax, linseed oil, lead and steel. By the end of the 20th century we are now using over 55 000 materials, the majority of which are synthetic - plastics, solvents, vinyl's etc.