Reclaiming the Daylight Factory: The Significance of Versatility in the Preservation of Early Twentieth Century Concrete Frame Industrial Buildings in Dayton, Ohio

Abstract

The daylight factory, a multi-story concrete frame industrial building that proliferated in the built environment in the early twentieth century, has become industrially obsolete. Despite this current status, the daylight factory is a valuable typology for understanding the American industrial landscape in the early twentieth century. This thesis will detail the daylight factory as an architectural type, its development in the American industrial landscape, and its potential for adaptive use. It will also examine three representative case studies in Dayton, Ohio to explore the particular influence of the daylight factory in a particular historic context. The thesis concludes by determining that the most historically significant element of a daylight factory is the versatile industrial space within and that historic preservation strategies should be sensitive to that characteristic.