Proceedings of the First Conference of the Construction History Society

Proceedings of the First Conference of the Construction History Society
Author: James Campbell
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2014
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0992875102

The proceedings of the first conference of the Construction History Society, which took place on 11 and 12 April 2014 at Queens' College, Cambridge, featuring 48 peer-reviewed papers covering a wide variety of subjects on the theme of construction history.

Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories

Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories
Author: Ine Wouters
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 1394
Release: 2018-09-05
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0429013620

Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories brings together the papers presented at the Sixth International Congress on Construction History (6ICCH, Brussels, Belgium, 9-13 July 2018). The contributions present the latest research in the field of construction history, covering themes such as: - Building actors - Building materials - The process of building - Structural theory and analysis - Building services and techniques - Socio-cultural aspects - Knowledge transfer - The discipline of Construction History The papers cover various types of buildings and structures, from ancient times to the 21st century, from all over the world. In addition, thematic papers address specific themes and highlight new directions in construction history research, fostering transnational and interdisciplinary collaboration. Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories is a must-have for academics, scientists, building conservators, architects, historians, engineers, designers, contractors and other professionals involved or interested in the field of construction history.

Architectures of Festival in Early Modern Europe

Architectures of Festival in Early Modern Europe
Author: J.R. Mulryne
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2017-10-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317178920

This fourth volume in the European Festival Studies, 1450–1700 series breaks with precedent in stemming from a joint conference (Venice, 2013) between the Society for European Festivals Research and the PALATIUM project supported by the European Science Foundation. The volume draws on up-to-date research by a Europe-wide group of academic scholars and museum and gallery curators to provide a unique, intellectually-stimulating and beautifully-illustrated account of temporary architecture created for festivals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, together with permanent architecture pressed into service for festival occasions across major European locations including Italian, French, Austrian, Scottish and German. Appealing and vigorous in style, the essays look towards classical sources while evoking political and practical circumstances and intellectual concerns – from re-shaping and re-conceptualizing early sixteenth-century Rome, through providing for the well-being and political allegiance of Medici-era Florentines and exploring the teasing aesthetics of performance at Versailles to accommodating players and spectators in seventeenth-century Paris and at royal and ducal events for the Habsburg, French and English crowns. The volume is unique in its field in the diversity of its topics and the range of its scholarship and fascinating in its account of the intellectual and political life of Early Modern Europe.

Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime

Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime
Author: Lino Camprubi
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2014-05-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262323230

How engineers and agricultural scientists became key actors in Franco's regime and Spain's forced modernization. In this book, Lino Camprubí argues that science and technology were at the very center of the building of Franco's Spain. Previous histories of early Francoist science and technology have described scientists and engineers as working “under” Francoism, subject to censorship and bound by politically mandated research agendas. Camprubí offers a different perspective, considering instead scientists' and engineers' active roles in producing those political mandates. Many scientists and engineers had been exiled, imprisoned, or executed by the regime. Camprubí argues that those who remained made concrete the mission of “redemption” that Franco had invented for himself. This gave them the opportunity to become key actors—and mid-level decision makers—within the regime. Camprubí describes a series of projects across Spain undertaken by the civil engineers and agricultural scientists who placed themselves at the center of their country's forced modernization. These include a coal silo, built in 1953, viewed as an embodiment of Spain's industrialized landscape; links between laboratories, architects, and the national Catholic church (and between technology and authoritarian control); vertically organized rice production and research on genetics; river management and the contested meanings of self-sufficiency; and the circulation of construction standards by mobile laboratories as an engine for European integration. Separately, each chapter offers a fascinating microhistory that illustrates the coevolution of Francoist science, technology, and politics. Taken together, they reveal networks of people, institutions, knowledge, artifacts, and technological systems woven together to form a new state.

Saving Michelangelo's Dome

Saving Michelangelo's Dome
Author: Wayne Kalayjian
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1639365877

In 1742, when the legendary dome atop St. Peter’s Basilica—designed by Michelangelo—cracks and threatens to collapse, Pope Benedict XIV summons three mathematicians to help, whose revolutionary ideas spark a chain of events that will change the world of architecture forever. 1742: the famous dome atop Saint Peter’s Basilica, designed by Michelangelo, is fractured and threatened with collapse. The dome is the pride of Italy and the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. And no one knows how to fix it. This engaging and colorful narrative tells the overlooked story of how Michelangelo’s Dome was saved from disaster by three mathematicians and Pope Benedict XIV, who had asked them for help. It is a gripping story of decisive leadership, crisis management, and scientific innovation, and the resistance that was faced when sailing into the headwinds of conventional thought. In Saving Michelangelo's Dome, Stanford-trained engineer Wayne Kalayjian illustrates how new ideas in science and mathematics established an entirely new way of looking at the world—as well as solving its complex problems. In the end, readers will appreciate that in saving Michelangelo’s Dome from collapse, these three mathematicians and one determined pope unknowingly invented the profession of engineering as we practice it today. With it, they transformed the architectural world and ushered in generations of future buildings and structures that, otherwise, would never have been built.

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering
Author: Diane P. Michelfelder
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 793
Release: 2020-12-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351996568

Engineering has always been a part of human life but has only recently become the subject matter of systematic philosophical inquiry. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering presents the state-of-the-art of this field and lays a foundation for shaping future conversations within it. With a broad scholarly scope and 55 chapters contributed by both established experts and fresh voices in the field, the Handbook provides valuable insights into this dynamic and fast-growing field. The volume focuses on central issues and debates, established themes, and new developments in: Foundational perspectives Engineering reasoning Ontology Engineering design processes Engineering activities and methods Values in engineering Responsibilities in engineering practice Reimagining engineering The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering will be of value for both students and active researchers in philosophy of engineering and in cognate fields (philosophy of technology, philosophy of design). It is also intended for engineers working both inside and outside of academia who would like to gain a more fundamental understanding of their particular professional field. The increasing development of new technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, and new interdisciplinary fields, such as human-computer interaction, calls not only for philosophical inquiry but also for engineers and philosophers to work in collaboration with one another. At the same time, the demands on engineers to respond to the challenges of world health, climate change, poverty, and other so-called "wicked problems" have also been on the rise. These factors, together with the fact that a host of questions concerning the processes by which technologies are developed have arisen, make the current Handbook a timely and valuable publication.

The Wooden Carpentry of Roofs in Mediterranean Antiquity

The Wooden Carpentry of Roofs in Mediterranean Antiquity
Author: Nicola Ruggieri
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2024-04-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 103640238X

The truss adopts the rational configuration of the non-deformable triangle, optimizing the exploitation of the wooden members’ resistance resources. It is an extremely efficient structural typology that has gone through the centuries in its almost primitive configuration without substantial modifications, for which finding comparisons in the history of construction is difficult. But when was the truss born? This is the first general-interest book to address this question. Using scant but precious ancient literary documentation, the archaeological finds and the iconography of the figurative products that reproduce roofs, the book traces the gradual evolution process of the roof carpentry that led to such an invention. New hypotheses are advanced on the technical achievements of the main Mediterranean civilizations – Egyptian, Minoan and Mycenaean, Phrygian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman – in a broad and ambitious excursion that crosses the whole of Antiquity. The book is accompanied by a rich illustrative apparatus that includes historical and original photographs as well as numerous explanatory drawings.

Technology in Transition A.D. 300-650

Technology in Transition A.D. 300-650
Author: Luke Lavan
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 633
Release: 2008-03-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047433041

This book is the first general work to be published on technology in Late Antiquity. It seeks to survey aspects of the technology of the period and to respond to questions about technological continuity, stagnation and decline. The book opens with a comprehensive bibliographic essay that provides an overview of relevant literature. The main section then explores technologies in agriculture, production (metal, ceramics and glass), engineering and building. Papers draw on both archaeological and textual sources, and on analogies with medieval and early modern technologies. Reference is made not only to the periods which preceded it, but to the transition to the Early Middle Ages and to the technological heritage of Late Antiquity to the Islamic world. Several papers focus on Italy, whilst others consider North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Near-East.

Building Histories: the Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Construction History Society Conference

Building Histories: the Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Construction History Society Conference
Author: James Campbell
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2017
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0992875137

This volume is the fourth in the series. Each contains the papers presented at the annual conferences of the Construction History Society. This volume contains papers on the history and development of concrete construction, on the education of architects, on the development of scaffolding and roof construction and much more.