"The emergence of lightweight structures can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth Century. This period witnessed the advent of new material technologies such as steel, , resistant glass and, later, fabric membrane. Together with advances in analysis and design tools, engineers and architects have been challenged to build increasingly lighter structures. ...[A] pioneering structure was the lattice tower by... in 1896. In the 1920s, Anton Tedesko first introduced reinforced concrete thin shells in the United States. This expansion was pursued... by , and André Paduart... The limit of lightness was achieved with tensile structures constructed of prestressed cable nets and fabric membranes; the strength coming from the anticlastic curvature of the geometric surface. ...Nowadays, lightweight structures should be designed... by including the multitude of design contraints. This will result in hybrid systems lying at the boundary of different typologies."