From Caves to Skyscrapers

Who thinks about chemistry when admiring architecture? Probably not very many people do but without chemistry nothing could be built: No streets, bridges or airports, no stores, no buildings for leisure or sporting activities and certainly no leading-edge construction projects such as the highest building in the word, the more than 800 metre tall skyscraper Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Conventional building materials such as lime, sand, cement, gypsum or wood no longer suffice by themselves; the right admixtures are needed to give a building material special capabilities.