News and Press
Heavy and light: Bob Barton reviews Building: 3000 Years of Design, Engineering and Construction, by Bill Addis
15 May 2007, Architecture Today (Article Reference: AT178p8)
When I agreed to review a history of design engineering I expected a big book. I was not disappointed. With 450 pages and nearly 800 illustrations, Bill Addis' volume weighs in at a dust cover under two kilograms. From the outset Addis makes clear that 'building engineering' encompasses all of the engineering disciplines: acoustic and environmental, as well as structural, although it is structural engineering that takes centre stage for most of the book.
Perhaps this is reasonable when discussing Roman and Renaissance building, but for the early tall buildings, surely elevator design needs a serious treatment. Certainly more than just a photograph of the first Otis lift. Such criticism is perhaps harsh for Addis' book is not only wide ranging but scholarly and detailed in presentation. The nine chapters are arranged chronologically, and deal with gradually shortening time frames, from the first, which deals with the 1500 years up to 500AD, to the ninth, looking at 1960 onwards.
Each chapter starts with a time-line of people, innovations and building construction, and continues with enthralling descriptions of the events and developments. Addis is careful to set the social and economic scene, meticulously describing the context, and critically appraising the designs. Despite this intellectual rigour, the prose flows well. Stories such as that of the Roman property developer, who would use his slave firefighters to extinguish burning buildings in return for their freedom, are typical. The book is sprinkled with brief texts on such diverse topics as slide rules, logarithmic tables and dye-line prints, which help explain the contexts in which engineers have worked. Addis' experience as a design engineer gives him the ease with language of someone who has 'been there, done that'. Inevitably the reader is drawn to play the list game: who is in and who is out?
In, I am glad to say, is Vladimir Shukhov, the Russian gridshell designer of the 1920s. But the real eyebrow raiser is Brunel, who scrapes in only for a water tower in Sydenham. Omissions for me include August Komendant, Louis Kahn's engineer, and Alistair Day who in the 1960s and 70s developed the technique of dynamic relaxation so essential to non-linear analysis of cable net and fabric structures. And I think Peter Rice and Frank Newby should have had bigger parts - maybe something for the second edition. It took me forty five pages to spot that the small numbers next to the text blocks refered to illustrations and not footnotes. Other niggles include placing captions at the bottom of the page, and grouping illustrations, sometimes two or three pages away from the relevant text. I wonder too whether the title will confuse librarians. Is it 3000 years of 'design engineering and construction', or 'design, engineering, and construction'?
The 3000 years is also a bit of a misnomer as the first five centuries get squashed into just three pages. In defence of the publisher however I see that my 'Banister Fletcher' is actually called 'a history of architecture on the comparative method' - I hope this book comes to be known as 'Addis'. Overall, the author's achievement is magnificent, and no previous book on this subject comes close. Carrying these two kilos around with me for the last few weeks has been a real joy, providing entertainment and inspiration.
If you ever hear anyone moaning about the lack of graduates coming into the construction professions, tell them to donate a copy of this book to their local secondary school library. How could any intelligent and imaginative 17-year-old think of career in banking or media when they could live a life in the world described here?
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