Engineers

Matthew Wells, a Chartered Architect and Engineer, has taught at various schools of architecture including Nottingham School of Architecture as a unit tutor. He is an external examiner at Liverpool University School of Architecture and has been a technical tutor at the Bartlett School of Architecture for 10 years. He is best known as the founder and director of Techniker Ltd, Consulting Structural Engineers and has worked with leading architects such as Lifschutz Davidson and Eva Jiricna on footbridges, glass staircases and many contemporary leading edge projects.

"This book appears to be an ambitious project. Not only does the author propose a ‘history of engineering and structural design’ from prehistory to present time (2000, p. 5), but he also seeks to contribute to a comprehensive and critical analysis about the way in which engineering and the innovation process have developed all along this time and in different parts of the world. This is a real challenge, to which Matthew Wells successfully responds, due to his comprehensive reading and to his methodological approach." - Elisabeth Campagnac, Construction Management and Economics, July 2012

• 1. Prehistory and Ancient Times 2. Rome and the East (220 BC–533 AD) 3. Byzantium and the European Dark Ages (476–1000) 4. Light (1000–1600) 5. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) 6. Enlightenment (1580–1789) 7. Encyclopaedia (1750–1860) 8. The American Reconstruction (1860–1890) 9. Classical Analysis and Reinforced Concrete (1890–1920) 10. Flight and the World Wars (1900–1950) 11. Early Contemporaries (1945–1960) 12. The Continual Present (1950–2000)