Ancient Roman architecture
Although concrete had been used on a minor scale in Mesopotamia, Roman architects perfected Roman concrete and used it in buildings where it could stand on its own and support a great deal of weight. The first use of concrete by the Romans was in the town of Cosa sometime after 273 BC. Ancient Roman concrete was a mixture of lime mortar, aggregate, pozzolana, water, and stones, and was stronger than previously-used concretes. The ancient builders placed these ingredients in wooden frames where they hardened and bonded to a facing of stones or (more frequently) bricks. The aggregates used were often much larger than in modern concrete, amounting to rubble.
Ferrocement
The inventors of ferrocement are Frenchmen Joseph Monier who dubbed it "ciment armé" (armored cement) and Joseph-Louis Lambot who constructed a batteau with the system in 1848. Lambot exhibited the vessel at the Exposition Universelle in 1855 and his name for the material "ferciment" stuck. Lambot patented his batteau in 1855 but the patent was granted in Belgium and only applied to that country. At the time of Monier's first patent, July 1867, he planned to use his material to create urns, planters, and cisterns. These implements were traditionally made from ceramics, but large-scale, kiln-fired projects were expensive and prone to failure. In 1875, Monier expanded his patents to include bridges and designed his first steel-and-concrete bridge. The outer layer was sculpted to mimic rustic logs and timbers, thereby also ushering Faux Bois (wood grain) concrete. In the first half of the twentieth century Italian Pier Luigi Nervi was noted for his use of ferro-cement, in Italian called "ferro-cemento".