The construction history overlaps many other fields such as structural engineering and relies on other branches of science such as archeology, history and architecture to investigate how builders live and record their achievements. These fields allow us to analyze the constructed buildings and other structures built since prehistory, the tools used and the use of different building materials.
The history of the building develops with different trends in time, characterized by several key principles: the resistance of materials used, the height increase and the span, the level of control carried out over the interior environment and finally the energy available for the construction process.
Video History of construction
Chronological development
Neolithic construction
Neolithic , also known as New Stone Age , is a period of time of approximately 9000 BC to 5000 BC named because it is the last period of the time before the start of wood work. The tools available are made from natural materials including bone, horn, hide, stone, wood, grass, animal fiber, and water use. These tools are used by people to cut such as with hand axes, helicopters, adze, and celt. Also to scrape, cut as with the tools of flake, pound, poke, roll, pull, lever, and take it.
Building materials include bones such as mammoth rib, hide, stone, metal, bark, bamboo, clay, lime plaster, and more. For example, the first bridge made by humans may be just logs placed across the river and then wooden footprints. In addition to living in caves and stone sanctuaries, the first building is a simple shelter, tents such as the Inuit tupiq, and the hut is sometimes built as a pit house intended to meet the basic needs of the protection of the elements and sometimes as a bastion for safety like crannog. Built independently by its inhabitants rather than by specialist builders, using locally available materials and traditional designs and methods that together are called vernacular architecture.
The simplest shelter, a tent, leaves no trace. Because of this, what we can say about early construction is largely a conjecture and based on what we know about the way nomadic hunters and pastors in remote areas build today's shelters. The absence of metal tools places limitations on workable materials, but it is still possible to construct fairly complex stone structures with ingenuity using dry stone wall techniques such as Skara Brae in Scotland, Europe's most complete Neolithic village. The first mud brick, shaped by hand rather than wood mold, belongs to the late Neolithic period and is found in Jericho. One of the largest structures of this period is the long house of Neolithic. In all cases the skeletal structure of timber and wooden beams in this early culture, only the lowest part of the walls and post pits excavated in archaeological excavations, makes the reconstruction of the upper part of the building largely cursed.
Neolithic architecture ranges from tent to megalith (the arrangement of large stones) and architecture of stone pieces that often include temples, tombs, and shelter. The most remarkable Neolithic structure in Western Europe is the iconic megalith known as Stonehenge, which is regarded by some archaeologists as a method of presenting such wooden constructions in wood translated into stone, a process known as petrification. The remains of existing ruins are the construction of pegs and thresholds and include large sandstone sills located on the support of uprights by mortise and tenon joints; the threshold itself ends with the use of tongue and groove connections. There is also evidence of prefabricated stone; the symmetrical geometric arrangement of the stone clearly shows that the builders of Stonehenge have mastered advanced survey methods. Neolithic villages large enough to have rural and urban features are called proto-cities to distinguish them from the cities that started with Eridu.
Gallery of Neolithic tools
Maps History of construction
Copper Age and Bronze Age
The Copper Age was the early part of the Bronze Age. Bronze is made when lead is added to copper and brass is copper with zinc. Copper began to be used before 5,000 BC and the bronze was about 3,100 BC, although time varies by region. Copper and bronze are used for the same type of tools as rocks such as axes and chisels, but new materials, less brittle, more durable cut better. The bronze is thrown into the desired shape and if damaged it can rearrange. A new tool developed in the era of copper is a saw. Other uses of copper and bronze are to "harden" sophisticated equipment like the Egyptians using copper and bronze to work with soft rocks including extracting blocks and making architectural pieces of stone.
During the Bronze Age, the tailed beam arch began to be used as for the honeycomb tomb. The wheels started to be used but were not common until much later. Heavy loads are moved by boat, sled (primitive sled) or on a roller. The Egyptians began to build stone temples with the stake method and lintel construction and the Greeks and Romans followed this style.
Iron Age Construction
The Iron Age is a cultural period from about 1200 BC to 50 BC with extensive use of iron for equipment and weapons. Iron is not harder than bronze but by adding carbon iron to steel produced after about 300 BC. Steel can harden and temper produces sharp, durable cutting edge. The new woodworking tools permitted by the use of steel are handmade.
Ancient Mesopotamia
The earliest large-scale buildings that became evidence of survival have been found in ancient Mesopotamia. Smaller dwellings only survive on foundation traces, but civilizations then build enormous structures in the form of castles, temples and zigguras and take special care to build them out of lasting materials, which have ensured that the very parts big is still intact. The main technical achievements are evidenced by the construction of major cities such as Uruk and Ur. Ziggurat of Ur was an extraordinary building during the period, despite the massive reconstruction work. Another great example is ziggurat in Chogha Zanbil in modern Iran. Cities are creating demands for new technologies such as sewage and human sewage and paved roads.
Archaeological evidence has shown the existence of a brick dome as in Tell al-Rimah in what is now Iraq.
Materials
The main building material is the mud, formed in a wooden mold similar to that used to make adobe bricks. The bricks vary greatly in size and format from small bricks that can be lifted in one hand to a large paving plates. Rock rectangles and squares are equally common. They are placed in almost every imaginable bonding pattern and are used with considerable sophistication. Images of survival on clay tablets from later periods indicate that buildings are set on brick modules. In 3500 BC, dismantled bricks began to be used and surviving records showed a very complicated division of labor into separate tasks and trades. Bricks and fired stones are used for sidewalks.
Life is generally governed by elaborate rituals and this is extended to the rituals for building and building the first brick. Contrary to popular belief, the arch was not invented by the Romans, but used in this civilization. The later Mesopotamian civilizations, in particular Babylon and later Susa, developed shiny bricks to a very high degree, decorating the interior and exterior of their buildings with shiny brick reliefs, surviving examples of the Teheran archeological museum, the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
Ancient Egyptian
Unlike the ancient Mesopotamian culture built on bricks, Egyptian pharaohs built large structures in stone. The dry climate has preserved many ancient buildings.
Materials
Adobe's construction (sun-baked mud brick) was used for additional buildings and normal houses in ancient times and is still commonly used in rural Egypt. The hot and dry climate is ideal for brick mud, which tends to drift in the rain. Ramesseum in Thebes, Egypt (Luxor) provides one of the finest examples of mud brick construction. Spacious warehouses with mud bricks can also survive, all built on oblique courses to avoid the need for formwork.
The grandest buildings are built on stones, often from massive brick blocks. The techniques used to remove large blocks used in pyramids and temples have been widely debated. Some authors suggest that larger ones may not be cut stone but made with concrete.
Technology
Although Egyptians achieve remarkable achievements in engineering, they seem to do so with relatively primitive technology. As far as is known they do not use wheels or pulleys. They transport large stones over long distances using rollers, ropes, and sleds carried by large numbers of workers. Ancient Egypt is credited with creating inclines, levers, lathes, ovens, ships, paper, irrigation systems, window tents, doors, glass, Paris plaster shapes, bathtubs, locks, shadoof, weaving, standard measurement systems, geometry, silos, rock drilling, sawing, steam power, proportional scale shots, enameling, veneer, plywood, wire rope, and more. There are no surviving Egyptian guides so there is great speculation as to how the stone is lifted to the heights and a large obelisk is erected. Most theories focus on the use of ramps.
Imhotep, who lived around 2650-2600 BC, is credited as the first recorded architect and engineer.
Achievements
The pyramids are very impressive because of their enormous size and the surprising labor that must be used in their construction. The largest is the Great Pyramid of Giza which remains the world's tallest structure for 3800 years (see List of the world's highest freestanding structures). The engineering issues involved mainly concern the transport of blocks, sometimes from a distance, their movement to the proper location and leveling. It is now generally agreed that skilled construction workers are respected and treated well, but no doubt an enormous number of workers are required to provide brute force.
The methods used in pyramidal development have been the subject of considerable research and discussion (see Egyptian pyramid construction techniques).
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greeks, like Egypt and Mesopotamia, tend to build most of their public buildings from mud bricks, leaving no note behind them. Yet very many structures survive, some of which are in excellent repair condition, although some have been partially reconstructed or rebuilt in the modern era. The most dramatic is the Greek Temple. The Greeks made many advances in technology including pipes, spiral staircases, central heating, urban planning, water wheels, cranes, and more.
The oldest "construction drawing" is at the Temple of Apollo in Didyma. Unfinished stone walls are etched with column profiles and prints, and the walls are never finished so the image is not erased: a rare glimpse into the history of construction drawings that work.
No wooden structure survives (roof, floor, etc.), so our knowledge of how this is put together is limited. The spans, in the main part, are limited and suggest very simple beams and poles that cover the stone walls. For a longer range it is uncertain whether the Greeks or Romans created the truss but the Romans certainly used a wooden roof trunk. Before 650 B.C.E. ancient Greek temples are now famously built of wood, but after this date began to be built from stone. The process of repeated wooden structures in stone is called petrification or "petrified".
The fired clay is mainly confined to roof tiles and related decorations, but this is quite complicated. The roof tile allows for low roof characteristics of ancient Greek architecture. The fired brick started to be used with lime. The buildings are very prominent roofed roof tile, which mimics the shape of their terracotta counterpart. While the later cultures tend to build their stone buildings with thin stone finishes over the core debris, the Greeks tend to build from large cut blocks, joining metal cramps. This is a slow, costly and exhausting process that limits the number of buildings that can be built. Metal cramps often fail due to corrosion.
Most building structures use simple beam and column systems without domes or arches, which are based on strict limits on the reachable span. However, the Greeks built several vault of crotch, arch bridge and, with the Egyptians, the first "high rise", the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Greek Mathematics is technically advanced and we know for sure that they use and understand the principles of pulleys, which will allow them to build jibs and cranes to lift heavy rocks to the top of the building. Their survey skills are outstanding, allowing them to define very precise optical corrections from buildings such as Parthenon, although the methods used remain a mystery. Simpler decorations, like floating in columns, are simply left until the column drum is cut in place.
The ancient Greeks never developed a powerful mortar that became an important feature of Roman construction.
Roman Empire
In contrast to the previous culture, much is known about the construction of Roman buildings. Very large numbers survive, including complete intact buildings like the Pantheon, Rome, and the well-kept ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. We also have the first surviving treatise on architecture by Vitruvius covering vast sections of construction engineering.
Materials
The great Roman construction in building materials was the use of a hydraulic lime mortar called Roman cement. The previous culture had used lime lime, but by adding a volcanic ash called pozzolana, the mortar would harden underwater. It gives them a strong material for bulk walling. They use bricks or stones to build outer wall shells and then fill the cavities with a large amount of concrete, effectively using brick as a permanent cover (formwork). Then they used a removable wooden cover so that the concrete could be healed.
An example of a temple made of Roman concrete in the 1st century BC is the Vesta Temple in Tivoli, Italy. The concrete is made no more than debris and mortar. It's cheap and very easy to produce and requires relatively unskilled labor to use, allowing the Romans to build an unprecedented scale. They not only use it for walls but also to form arches, dome barrels and domes, which they build on a huge expanse. The Romans developed a hollow pot system to create domes and heating systems and sophisticated ventilation for their hot baths..
The Romans replaced the bronze for wood on the roof frame (s) of the Pantheon porch which was commissioned between 27 BC and 14 AD. The bronze rods are unique but in 1625, Pope Urban VIII had rolls replaced with wood and melted the bronze for other uses. The Romans also made bronze tiles
Lead is used for roof covering materials and water supply and waste pipes. Latin name for lead is lead so that pipe . Rome also uses glass in construction with colored glass in mosaics and clear glass for windows. Glass became quite commonly used in windows of public buildings. Central heating in the form of hypocaust, the raised floor is heated by a wooden exhaust or coal fire.
Working organization
The Romans had trade unions. Most of the construction is done by slaves or liberated people. The use of slave labor clearly cuts costs and is one of the reasons for the scale of some structures. The Romans placed great emphasis on building their buildings very quickly, usually within two years. For very large structures, the only way to achieve this is to apply a large number of workers to the task.
Technology
The discovery of waterwheels, sawmills, arches, and by the Romans. The Romans also began using glass for architectural purposes after about 100 CE and using double glass as an insulated glass. Roman roads include corduroy and paved roads, sometimes supported on rafts or foundations of piles and bridges. Vitruvius gives details of many Roman machines. The Romans developed a sophisticated wooden crane that allowed them to lift a considerable load. The upper limit of lifting seems to be about 100 tons. The Trajan column in Rome contains some of the largest stones ever raised in a Roman building, and the engineers are still uncertain exactly how it was accomplished.
The longest list of Roman structures, the highest and deepest can be found in the Register of Ancient Architecture Records. The intelligence of the Roman buildings was expanded through bridges, aqueducts, and enclosed amphitheater. Their sewerage and water supply work is amazing and some systems are still operating today. The only aspect of Roman construction that has very little evidence of survival is the form of a wooden roof structure, none of which seem to survive intact. Perhaps, a triangular roof frame was built, this is the only imaginable way to build a large reachable range, the longest exceeding 30 meters (see List of ancient Greek and Roman roofs).
China
China is a regional cultural center in eastern Asia, many methods and styles of Far Eastern buildings evolved from China. An example of China's famous construction is the Great Wall of China built between the 7th and 2nd centuries BC. The Great Wall was built by crashing into earth, stone, and wood and then bricks and tiles with lime cement. The wooden gate blocked the driveway. The oldest archaeological example of the carpentry joints of thorns and spines is found in China, which is around 5000 BC.
Yingzao Fashi is the oldest complete technical manual in Chinese architecture. The Chinese have followed the rules of the country for thousands of years so that many of the ancient buildings still alive were built with methods and materials still in use in the 11th century. Chinese temples are usually wooden wooden frames on the earth and stone footing. The oldest wooden building is the Nanchan Temple (Wutai) originating from 782 CE. However, Chinese temple builders regularly rebuild wooden temples so some parts of these ancient buildings have different ages. Traditional Chinese wooden frameworks do not use scrolls but depend only on the construction of pegs and frames. An important architectural element is the dougong bracket set. Songyue Pagoda is the oldest 523 AD brick pagoda. Built with yellow bricks placed on clay, with twelve sides and fifteen roof levels. Anji Bridge is the oldest open open stone open stone bridge in the world built in 595-605 AD. The bridge is built with sandstone joined with fitting, iron joints.
Most of the Great Wall section (the restored) we see today was built with bricks, and cut stone blocks/stone slabs. Where bricks and blocks are not available, ground is pounded, uncut stones, wood, and even reeds are used as local materials. Wood is used for castles and as auxiliary materials. Where local wood is not enough, they bring it inside.
Great Wall Part of Stone
In the mountains, workers mine rocks to build the Great Wall. By using the mountains as a foothold, the outer layers of the Great Wall are built with stone blocks (and bricks), and filled with uncut stones and other items available (such as land and workers dead).
Great Wall Wall
On the plains, the Great Wall workers used local land (sand, soil, etc.) and bumped it into a dense layer. The Great Wall section of Jiayuguan in western China is mainly built with dusty, arid land - "the most eroding soil on the planet". It's amazing that part of 2,000 years is still mostly intact!
Sand (and Reed/Willow) Great Wall Part
Sand does not stick together, so how can a wall be built with sand? Sand is used as a filler material between the reed and the willow layer.
Western China around Dunhuang is a desert. Innovative builders there take advantage of reeds and willows brought from the river and oases to build strong walls. Jade Gate Pass (Yumenguan) Great Wall Fort was built with a layer of sand and reeds as thick as 20 cm, 9 meters high impressive.
Large Brick Wall Section
The Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty is mostly built with bricks. To build strong walls with bricks, they use lime cement. Workers build brick and cement factories with local materials near the wall.
Medieval
Medieval Europe dates from the 5th to 15th century AD from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance and divided into pre-Roman and Roman periods.
The castle, castle and cathedral are the largest construction projects. The Middle Ages began with the end of the Roman era and many lost Roman building techniques. But some Roman techniques, including the use of iron ring-beams, appear to have been used in the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, c. 800 AD, where it is believed the builders of the Kingdom of Langobard in northern Italy contributed to the work. The revival of stone buildings in the 9th century and Romanesque architectural style began at the end of the 11th century. Also famous is the stave church in Scandinavia.
Materials
Most of the buildings in Northern Europe are built from wood to c. 1000 AD. In Southern Europe, adobe remains dominant. Bricks continue to be produced in Italy over the period 600-1000 AD but elsewhere the craft of brick making has largely disappeared and hence the method for burning tiles. The roof is mostly hay. The houses are small and gathered around a large communal hall. Monasticism deploys more sophisticated building techniques. The Cistercians may be responsible for reintroducing brick making to the area from the Netherlands, through Denmark and North Germany to Poland leading to Backsteingotics. Bricks remain the most popular prestige material in the region during this period. Elsewhere, the building is usually made of wood or where it can be given. Medieval stone walls were built using blocks cut outside walls and debris debris, with weak lime mortar. The poor hardening nature of the mortar is a persistent problem, and the settlement of debris from Roman and Gothic walls and docks remains a major cause of concern.
Design
There is no standard textbook to build in the Middle Ages. Master craftsmen transfer their knowledge through apprenticeship and from father to son. Trade secrets are closely guarded, because they are the source of a craftsman's livelihood. Images only survive from the next period. Parchment is too expensive to use and paper does not appear until the end of the period. Models are used to design structures and can be built for large scale. The details are mostly designed with full size on the tracing floor, some of which survive.
Labor
In general, medieval buildings were built by paid workers. Unskilled work is done by paid workers day after day. Skilled craftsmen serve internships or learn trade from their parents. It is not clear how many unionized women hold a monopoly over certain trades in certain areas (usually within the city walls). Cities are generally very small by modern standards and dominated by the residence of a small number of nobles or wealthy merchants, and by cathedrals and churches.
Technique
Roman buildings in the period 600-1100 AD entirely roofed with wood or have a dome stone rod covered by wooden roofs. Gothic architectural style with its dome, flying support and gothic pointed arches developed in the 12th century, and in subsequent centuries, a more remarkable achievement of the courage of construction achieved in stone. Thin stone cavities and towering buildings are built using rules derived from experiments and errors. Failure often occurs, especially in difficult areas such as traversing towers.
The driver of the pile was found around 1500.
Achievements
The fortifications and fortresses of the Middle Ages were remarkable, but the magnificent buildings of the time were Gothic cathedrals with stone walls and thin glass walls. Extraordinary examples are: Beauvais Cathedral, Chartres Cathedral, King's College Chapel and Notre Dame, Paris.
Renaissance
Renaissance in Italy, the invention of the movable type and the Reformation changed the character of the building. Vitruvius discovery has a strong influence. During the building of the Middle Ages it was designed by the people who built it. The main carpenters and carpenters study their trades through word of mouth and rely on practical experience, models and rules to determine the size of building elements. But Vitruvius explains in great detail the perfect architect's education which, he says, must be skilled in all arts and sciences. Filippo Brunelleschi is one of the first of the new architectural styles. He started life as a goldsmith and educated himself in Roman architecture by studying the ruins. He went on to design the Santa Maria del Fiore dome in Florence.
Materials
A major breakthrough in this period relates to conversion technology. Water mills in much of Western Europe are used to view wood and turn trees into boards. Bricks are used in increasing quantities. In Italy, brick makers are organized into unions even though most kilns are in rural areas because of the risk of fire and the availability of firewood and brickearth is easy. Brick makers are usually paid for by bricks, which gives them an incentive to make them too small. As a result, the law is set to set the minimum size and each city continues to measure the bricks to be compared. The increased amount of iron is used in roof carpentry for ropes and tension members. The iron was fixed by using a forelock bolt. Threaded bolts (and nuts) can be made and found in watchmaking in this period, but they are labor intensive and thus not used on large structures. The roof is usually made of terracotta tiles. In Italy they followed the Roman precedent. In Europe's plain north tiles are used. Stones, if available, remain the material of choice for prestige buildings.
Design
The rebirth of the idea of ​​an architect in the Renaissance radically changed the nature of the building's design. The Renaissance reintroduces the classic style of architecture. Leon Battista Alberti's treatise on architecture elevates the subject to a new level, defining architecture as something worthy of being learned by the aristocracy. Previously it was seen only as a technical art, only suitable for artisans. The resulting changes in architectural status and more importantly the architect is the key to understanding changes in the design process. Renaissance architects are often artists (painters or sculptors) who have little knowledge of building technology but a keen understanding of classical design rules. The architect must therefore provide detailed drawings for the craftsmen who arrange the disposition of the various parts. This is called the design process, from the Italian word for drawing. Sometimes architects will engage in very difficult technical issues but the architectural technical side is mostly left to the craftsmen. Changes in the way the building is designed have a fundamental difference about how the problem is approached. Where medieval craftsmen tend to approach problems with technical solutions in mind, Renaissance architects began with the idea of ​​what the final product needed to look like and then looking for ways to make it work. This led to a tremendous jump in engineering.
Labor
Workers in the Renaissance are the same as in the Middle Ages: buildings built by paid workers. Unskilled work is done by paid workers day after day. Skilled craftsmen serve internships or learn trade from their parents. Artisans organized in unions that provide a form of restricted development regulation in return for union members hold a monopoly on certain trades in certain areas (usually within the city walls). The city is generally very small by modern standards and dominated by the residence of a small number of rich nobles or merchants and cathedrals and churches.
Technical progress
The desire to return to classical architecture created problems for Renaissance buildings. Builders do not use concrete and thus comparable dome and dome must be replicated in brick or stone. The greatest technical achievement is undoubtedly in this field. The first major breakthrough was the Brunelleschi project for the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. Brunelleschi managed to design how to build a large dome without formwork, relying on the weight of the bricks and the way they are laid to keep them in position and shape the dome to stand still. The exact mode of dome built is still debated today because it is impossible to take a separate dome to study its construction without destroying it. The dome is a double skin, connected by a rib, with a series of wooden and stone chains around it at intervals to try to cope with the circular pressure.
The dome of Brunelleschi was completed (up to the base of the lantern) in 1446. Its size was soon surpassed by the dome of St. Peter, built using a flying scaffold supported on a cornice and built using two stone shells.
Seventeenth century
The seventeenth century saw the birth of modern science that would have a profound effect on building construction in the coming centuries. A major breakthrough was towards the end of the century when architects began to use experimental science to inform their building form. However it was not until the 18th century that engineering theory was developed sufficiently to allow the size of the members to be counted. The structure of the seventeenth century relies heavily on experience, the rule of thumb and the use of scale models.
Materials and tools
The major breakthrough in this period was in the manufacture of glass, with the first cast glass developed in France. Iron is increasingly used in structures. Christopher Wren used an iron rod to suspend the floor blocks at Hampton Court Palace, and iron bars to repair Salisbury Cathedral and reinforce the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. Most of the buildings have an ashlar stone surface covering the debris, which is held together with lime mortar. The experiment carried out lime mixing with other materials to provide hydraulic mortar, but still nothing is equivalent to Roman concrete. In Britain, France, and the Republic of the Netherlands, pieces and measurements of bricks are used to provide exposed and ornate facades. Truss roof marked three was introduced to England and used by Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren.
Many tools have been made obsolete by modern technology, but line gauges, perpendicular lines, carpenter's plazas, spirit levels, and compass compilations are still used regularly.
Method
Despite the birth of experimental science, the method of construction in this period remained largely medieval. The same type of cranes used in previous centuries are still in use. The flying scaffold is employed in St. Paul's Cathedral, England and at the dome of St. Peters, Rome, but otherwise the same type of wood scaffold that had been used for centuries before was preserved. Cranes and scaffolds depend on wood. The complex pulley system allows a relatively large load to be lifted, and long ramps are used to carry the load to the top of the building.
The eighteenth century
The 18th century saw the development of many ideas born in the late seventeenth century. Architects and engineers are becoming more professional. Experimental science and mathematical methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated and used in buildings. At the same time the birth of the industrial revolution saw an increase in the size of the city and an increase in the rate and quantity of construction.
Materials
The major breakthrough in this period was the use of iron (both cast and forging). Iron columns have been used in Wren designs for the House of Commons and were used in some early 18th century churches in London, but these only support galleries. In the second half of the 18th century, the decline in the cost of iron production allowed the construction of major pieces of iron engineering. The Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale (1779) is a very important example. Large-scale factory construction requires fireproof and cast iron buildings to be increasingly used for columns and beams to carry brick vault for flooring. The Louvre in Paris boasts an early example of wrought iron roofing. Steel is used in the manufacture of the tool but can not be made in sufficient quantities for use to build.
Brick production increased sharply during this period. Many buildings throughout Europe are built of bricks, but they are often coated with lime rendering, sometimes patterned to look like rocks. Brick production itself has changed little. Bricks are shaped by hand and fired in a kiln that is no different from those used for centuries before. Terracotta in the form of Coade stone used as an artificial stone in England.
The nineteenth century: The Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution is manifested in new types of transportation installations, such as railroads, canals and macadam. This requires large amounts of investment. New construction tools include steam engines, machine tools, explosives and optical surveys. The steam engine combined with two other technologies developed in the nineteenth century, circular saws and nail cutting machines, led to the use of balloon framing and the decline of traditional wooden frames.
Since steel was mass-produced from the mid-19th century, steel was used, in the form of I-beams and reinforced concrete. The glass panels also become mass production, and change from luxury to everyone's.
Plumbing appears, and provides general access to drinking water and waste collection.
Building regulations have been in place since the 19th century, with special respect for fire safety.
Twentieth century
With the Second Industrial Revolution in the early twentieth century, lifts and cranes made skyscrapers and buildings tall, while heavy equipment and electrical equipment lowered the required workforce. Other new technologies are prefabricated and computer-aided design.
Unions are formed to protect the interests of construction workers. Personal protective equipment such as hard hats and earplugs are also beginning to be used.
From the 20th century, government construction projects were used as part of macroeconomic stimulation policies, especially during the Great Depression (see New Deal). For economies of scale, all suburbs, cities and cities, including infrastructure, are often planned and built into the same project (called megaprojects if they cost over US $ 1 billion), such as Braslia in Brazil, and the Millions Program in Sweden.
By the end of the 20th century, ecology, energy conservation, and sustainable development have become more important construction issues.
Academic discipline
There is no established academic discipline in construction history but more and more researchers and academics are working in this field, including structural engineers, archaeologists, architects, tech historians, and architectural historians. Although the subject has been studied since the Renaissance and there are a number of important studies in the nineteenth century, it is largely no longer popular in the mid-twentieth century. In the last thirty years there has been a tremendous increase in interest in this field, which is crucial for growing conservation practices.
Initial author
The earliest surviving book detailing historical building techniques is a treatise by Roman writer Vitruvius, but his approach is not scientific or systematic. Later, at the Renaissance, Vasari mentioned Filippo Brunelleschi's interest in researching Roman building techniques, although if he wrote something about it, he did not survive. In the seventeenth century, Rusconi's illustration of his version of the Leon Battista Alberti treatise explicitly shows the construction of Roman walls but most of the interest in ancient times was in understanding its proportions and details and the architects of that time were content to build using current techniques. While early archaeological studies and topographical works such as the Giovanni Battista Piranesi carving show Roman construction, they are not explicitly analytical and much of what they do the shows are made of.
Nineteenth-century studies
In the nineteenth century, lecturers increasingly illustrated their lectures with drawings of building techniques used in the past and these types of images increasingly appear in construction textbooks, such as Rondelet's. The greatest progress was made by British and French architects (and later Germans) who tried to understand, record, and analyze Gothic buildings. Typical of this type of paper is the works of Robert Willis in England, Viollet-le-Duc in France and Ungewitter in Germany. Yet none of this strives to show that the history of construction represents a new approach to the subject of architectural history. August Choisy is probably the first author to seriously attempt such a research.
Initial study of the twentieth century
Santiago Heurta argues that it is modernism, with its emphasis on the use of new materials, which suddenly ends interest in the history of construction that seems to have grown in the last few decades of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. With the advent of concrete and steel frame construction, the architects, who have been the main audiences for such studies, are no longer interested because they have understood the traditional construction, which suddenly appears excessive. Very little was published between 1920 and 1950. The rise of interest began in archeology with the study of Roman construction in the 1950s, but it was only in the 1980s that construction history began to emerge as an independent field.
End of the twentieth century
At the end of the twentieth century, steel and concrete construction became the subject of historical inquiry. The Society of Construction History was formed in England in 1982. It produces the only academic international journal devoted to the subject every year. The First International Congress on Construction History was held in Madrid in 2003. This was followed by the Second International Congress in 2006 at Queens College, Cambridge, England and the Third International Congress held at Cottbus in 2009, and the Fourth International Congress held in Paris in July 2012
See also
- Architectural history
- Structural engineering history
- History of water supply and sanitation
- Construction Historical Society
- Architectural timeline
References
External links
- History of construction on Curlie (based on DMOZ)
- Society of Construction History (International) [1]
- The Society of Construction History (USA) [2]
- Sociedad Espanola de Historia de la Construction (in Spanish) [3]
- I. The International Congress on Construction History: The Congressional Page (English) includes a free online process [4]
- II. The International Congress on Construction History: The Congressional Page (English) includes a free online process [5]
- III. The International Congress on the History of Construction: The Congress Page (English) includes a free online process [6] and reviews [7] (Germany)
- IV. The International Congress on Historical Construction: to be held in Paris in 2012 [8]
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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