Using Corten Steel

Few designers speak rhapsodically about concrete or gravel; but rusty steel, well, that's another matter. The metal, especially a type called Corten, has been coming up in conversations all around the world.

Dallas landscape architect David Hocker says, "I love steel's agrarian aesthetic; it's so reminiscent of miles of steel fencing and pole barns." In Walnut Creek, California, Joe Huettl raves about a mesmerizing juxtaposition in one of his projects that uses "swaying 'Karl Foerster' feather reed grass to backdrop the steady, solid quality of Corten steel walls." And in London, judges of the renowned RHS Chelsea Flower Show practically drooled over the 2010 The Daily Telegraph garden installation designed by Andy Sturgeon, which won Best in Show and prominently featured sculptural Corten screens.

The chairman of judges, Michael Balston, was said to call it a clear favorite among the contenders. "There are some that grab you a bit more and Andy's did for most of us," Balston told The Guardian at the time. "It has a superb dynamic as you walk around it and different views are revealed." The Daily Telegraph itself gushed over the use of Corten as a foil for the plantings. "The purples of salvia and aquilegia are the perfect sultry complement to the [steel's] coppers and bronzes," wrote garden columnist Stephen Lacey.

"I love steel's agrarian aesthetic; it's so reminiscent of steel fencing and pole barns," says David Hocker.

Corten—or weathering steel—is typically used for landscaping and outdoor construction. It is made with alloys that cause its surface to develop a self-protecting rust when exposed to weather. U. S. Steel developed the product in the 1930s and trademarked it as Cor-Ten; it was used primarily in railroad coal wagons. The insulating patina resists corrosion, requires no painting or weather-proofing, and doesn't compromise structural strength.

Corten became a go-to material for modernistic architecture and outdoor art in the 1950s and 1960s; it can be seen in such projects as the exoskeletal Ford Foundation Building in New York City and the 160-ton Picasso sculpture on Chicago's Daley Plaza. After the Eero Saarinen-designed John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois, was completed in 1964, local observers approvingly compared its earthy color to newly plowed soil—high praise from the heartland. Corten is just as popular today—witness the facades of so many Southwestern-style food franchises.