David P. Billington – författare

The description for this book, Robert Maillart''s Bridges: The Art of Engineering, will be forthcoming.

An essential exploration of the engineering aesthetics of celebrated structures from long-span bridges to high-rise buildingsWhat do structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the concrete roofs of Pier Luigi Nervi have in common? According to The Tower and the Bridge, all are striking examples of structural art, an exciting area distinct from either architecture or machine design. Aided by stunning photographs, David Billington discusses the technical concerns and artistic principles underpinning the well-known projects of leading structural engineer-artists, including Othmar Ammann, Félix Candela, Gustave Eiffel, Fazlur Khan, Robert Maillart, John Roebling, and many others. A classic work, The Tower and the Bridge introduces readers to the fundamental aesthetics of engineering.

Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account of the engineering behind eight breakthrough innovations that transformed American life from 1876 to 1939—the telephone, electric power, oil refining, the automobile, the airplane, radio, the long-span steel bridge, and building with reinforced concrete. Beginning with Thomas Edison''s system to generate and distribute electric power, the authors explain the Bell telephone, the oil refining processes of William Burton and Eugene Houdry, Henry Ford''s Model T car and the response by General Motors, the Wright brothers'' airplane, radio innovations from Marconi to Armstrong, Othmar Ammann''s George Washington Bridge, the reinforced concrete structures of John Eastwood and Anton Tedesko, and in the 1930s, the Chrysler Airflow car and the Douglas DC-3 airplane.These innovations used simple numerical ideas, which the Billingtons integrate with short narrative accounts of each breakthrough—a unique and effective way to introduce engineering and how engineers think. The book shows how the best engineering exemplifies efficiency, economy and, where possible, elegance. With Power, Speed, and Form, educators, first-year engineering students, liberal arts students, and general readers now have, for the first time in one volume, an accessible and readable history of engineering achievements that were vital to America''s development and that are still the foundations of modern life.

Long recognised as a classic in the USA, "The Tower and the Bridge" is now at last available in German translation. In his preface to the German edition, Jorg Schlaich writes. "This book is essential reading and a pleasure for the ''structural engineering artist,'' in whose structures the connection between form and force flow is visible and which are distinguished by the ideals of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and elegance."

Billington founded with this book structural art as a new, independent art form, which he considers equivalent to architecture. It is no coincidence that the title states the two classic domains of the structural engineer; in this case Billington is referring to two outstanding structures of the epoch, the Eiffel Tower and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Billington describes in an easily readable style and in an entertaining manner the ideals, principles and methods of structural art during its historical development through examples of structures from outstanding engineers (e.g. Telford, Maillart, Freyssinet, Menn).

With the establishment of structural art as an art form and the explication of its inherent principles, Billington gives the reader well founded arguments for the aesthetic discussion of engineering structures. This also provides a basis for criticism of the new art form; for the criticism of construction that has long been demanded. This timeless book thus has the potential to give a new impulse to the debate about construction culture and particularly the aesthetic aspects of structural engineering in German-speaking countries.

Long recognised as a classic in the USA, "The Tower and the Bridge" is now at last available in German translation. In his preface to the German edition, Jorg Schlaich writes. "This book is essential reading and a pleasure for the ''structural engineering artist,'' in whose structures the connection between form and force flow is visible and which are distinguished by the ideals of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and elegance."

Billington founded with this book structural art as a new, independent art form, which he considers equivalent to architecture. It is no coincidence that the title states the two classic domains of the structural engineer; in this case Billington is referring to two outstanding structures of the epoch, the Eiffel Tower and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Billington describes in an easily readable style and in an entertaining manner the ideals, principles and methods of structural art during its historical development through examples of structures from outstanding engineers (e.g. Telford, Maillart, Freyssinet, Menn).

With the establishment of structural art as an art form and the explication of its inherent principles, Billington gives the reader well founded arguments for the aesthetic discussion of engineering structures. This also provides a basis for criticism of the new art form; for the criticism of construction that has long been demanded. This timeless book thus has the potential to give a new impulse to the debate about construction culture and particularly the aesthetic aspects of structural engineering in German-speaking countries.