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History of construction Few things are more fascinating than how humans have changed the world around them. Mankind has constructed buildings and other structures since prehistory . The History of Construction is not limited to buildings but covers bridges, amphitheatres, dams, electricity pylons, road and canals to give just a few examples. Today we take the incredible feats of engineering very much for granted but virtually all of the building materials we use today have a long history and some of the structures built thousands of years ago without the aid of modern technology still have the ability to amaze. The history of construction is related to, but not identical with, the history of structural engineering. To understand why things were constructed the way they were, we also need to rely on archaeology to record the form of the parts that survive and the tools they used, economic history to inform us of how much they cost, social history to tell us about how the builders lived, and architectural history to tell us about the books and writings of the builders. It is a huge subject, but one that should interest anyone who wants to know more about how and why the built world around them is the way it is. [ edit ] Chronological Development The history of construction is a complex subject encompassing the history of building materials, the history of engineering, the history of building techniques, economic and social history of builders and workmen, the history of construction machinery and temporary works etc etc. Each of these has a complex literature devoted to it, but it perhaps worth providing the briefest of summaries here in the hope that others will start new more detailed pages. [ edit ] Neolithic construction The first bridges made by humans were probably wooden logs placed across a stream. The first buildings were simple huts , tents and shelters meant to suit the basic needs of protection from the elements, built by their inhabitants (see self-sufficiency ). The very simplest shelters, tents, leave no traces behind them. Because of this, what little we can say about very early construction is mostly conjecture and based on what we know about the way nomadic hunter-gatherers and herdsmen in remote areas build shelters today. The absence of metal tools placed limitations on the materials that could be worked, but it was still possible to build quite elaborate stone structures with ingenuity using dry stone walling techniques (see the stone structures at Skara Brae . The first mud bricks, formed with the hands rather than wooden moulds belong to the late neolithic period and were found in Jericho . One of the largest structures if this period was the Neolithic long house . In all cases of timber structures in these very early cultures, only the very lowest parts of the walls and post holes are unearthed in archaeological excavations, making reconstruction of the upper parts of these building purely conjectural. [ edit ] Construction in Ancient Mesopotamia The earliest large scale buildings for which any real evidence survives have been found in ancient Mesopotamia . The smaller dwellings only survive in traces of foundations, but the later civilisations built very sizeable structures in the forms of palaces, temples and ziggurats and took particular care to build them out of materials that last. which has ensured that very considerable parts have remained intact. [ edit ] Materials The chief building material was the mud brick, formed in wooden moulds ( adobe ). Bricks varied widely in size and format from small bricks that could be lifted in one hand to ones as big as large paving slabs. Rectangular bricks are found but square format bricks were also common. They were laid in virtually every bonding pattern imaginable and used with considerable sophistication. Drawings survive on clay tablets from later periods showing that buildings were set out on brick modules. By 3500BC bricks were also being fired and records survives showing a very complex division of labour into separate tasks and trades. Life in general was governed by complex ritual and this extended to rituals for setting out buildings and moulding the first bricks. Contrary to popular belief the arch was not invented by the Romans, but was used in these civilisations. The later Mesopotamian civilisations, particularly Babylon and thence Susa , developed glazed brickwork to a very high degree, decorating the interiors and exteriors of their buildings with glazed brick reliefs, examples of which survive in the archaeological museum in Tehran, the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. [ edit ] Major technical achievements The major technical achievements are in the construction of great cities such as Uruk and Ur . The Ziggurat of Ur remains one of the most outstanding surviving buildings of the period, despite major reconstruction work. Another fine example is the ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil in modern Iran. [ edit ] Construction in Ancient Egypt As opposed to the cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia which built in brick, the pharohs of Egypt built huge structures in stone. The dry arid climate has preserved many of the ancient buildings largely intact. [ edit ] Materials Adobe (sun-baked mud brick ) construction was used for ancillary buildings and normal houses in ancient times and is still commonly used in rural Egypt today. The hot dry climate was ideal for mud-brick, which tends to wash away in the rain. The Ramesseum in Thebes, Egypt (Luxor) provides one of the finest examples of mud brick construction, with extensive storehouses with mud-brick vaults surviving, all constructed with sloping courses to avoid the need for formwork. The grandest buildings were constructed in stone, often from massive masonry blocks. The techniques used to move the massive blocks often used in pyramids and temples have been subject to extensive debate. Some authors have even maintained that the larger blocks are not cut stone at all but actually artificial stone made using concrete. This theory is very controversial and not widely accepted. [ edit ] Technology Although the Egyptians achieved extraordinary feats of engineering, they appear to have done so with relatively primitive technology. As far as is known they did not use wheels or pulleys. They transported massive stones over great distances using rollers, ropes, and sledges, with large numbers of slaves hauling the loads. There are no surviving Egyptian manuals so there has been considerable speculation on how stones were lifted to great heights and obelisks erected. Most theories centre around the use of ramps. [ edit ] Outstanding Achievements The pyramids are chiefly impressive for their enormous size and the staggering manpower that must have been employed in their construction. Of these the largest is the Great Pyramid of Giza which remained the tallest structure in the world for 3800 years (see List of tallest freestanding structures in the world ). The engineering problems involved were chiefly to do with the transport of blocks, sometimes over long distances, their movement into location and exact alignment. It is now generally agreed that the skilled building workers were respected and well treated, but undoubtedly very large numbers of laborers were necessary to provide much of the brute force. The methods used in the construction of the pyramids have been the subject of considerable research and discussion (see: Egyptian pyramid construction techniques ). [ edit ] Construction in Ancient Greece The ancient Greeks , like the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians,tended to build most of their common buildings out of mud brick, leaving no record behind them. However very many structures do survive, some of which are in a very good state of repair, although some have been party reconstructed or re-erected in the modern era. The most dramatic are the Greek Temples . No timber structures survive (roofs, floors etc), so our knowledge of how these were put together is purely conjectural. The spans are in the main limited and suggest very simple beam and post structures spanning between stone walls. Fire clay was mainly restricted to roofing tiles and associated decorations, but these were quite elaborate. Fired bricks were not commonly employed. Very prominent buildings were roofed in stone tiles, which mimicked the form of their terracotta counterparts. While later cultures tended to construct their stone buildings with thin skins of finished stones over rubble cores, the Greeks tended to build out of large cut blocks, joined with metal cramps. This was a slow expensive and laborious process which limited the number of buildings that could be constructed. The metal cramps have often led to later failure through corrosion. Building structures used a simple beam and column system without vaults or arches, which based strict limits on the spans that could achieved. However the Greeks did construct Arch Bridges . Greek mathematics was technically advanced and we know for certain that they employed and understood the principles of pulleys , which would have enabled them to build gibs and cranes to lift heavy stonework to the upper parts of buildings. Their surveying skills were exceptional, enabling them to set out the incredibly exact optical corrections of buildings like the Parthenon , although the methods used remain a mystery. Simpler decoration, such as fluting on columns was simply left until the drums of the columns were cut in place. The Ancient Greeks never developed the strong mortars which were to become such an important feature of Roman construction. [ edit ] Roman construction In striking contrast to previous cultures, an enormous amount is known about Roman building construction. A very large amount survives, including complete intact buildings like the Pantheon, Rome and very well preserved ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum . We also have the first surviving treatise on architecture by Vitruvius which includes extensive passages on construction techniques. [ edit ] Materials The great Roman breakthrough was the development of hydraulic lime mortar . Previous cultures had used lime mortars but by adding volcanic ash the Romans managed to make a mortar that would harden underwater. This provided them with a cheap material for bulk walling. They used brick or stone to build the outer skins of the wall and then filled the space between with massive amounts of concrete , effectively using the brickwork as permanent shuttering. The concrete, being formed of nothing more than rubble and mortar was cheap and very easy to produce, requiring relatively unskilled labour, enabling the Romans to build huge on an unprecedented scale. They not only used it for walls but also to form arches , barrel vaults and domes , which they built over huge spans. The Romans developed systems of hollow pots for making their domes and sophisticated heating and ventilation systems for their thermal baths. Glass was commonly used in windows. [ edit ] Organisation of Labour The Romans had trade guilds. Most construction was done by slaves or freed men. The use of slave labour undoubtedly cut costs and was one of the reasons for the scale of some of the structures. The Romans placed a considerable emphasis in building their buildings extremely fast, usually within two years. For very large structures the only way this could be achieved was by the application of vast numbers of workers to the task. [ edit ] Technology Vitruvius gives details of many Roman machines. The Romans developed sophisticated timber cranes allowing them to lift considerable weights to great heights. The upper limit of lifting appears to have been 100 tonnes. Trajan's column in Rome contains some of the largest stones ever lifted in a Roman building and engineers are still uncertain exactly how it was achieved. [ edit ] Outstanding technical Achievements A list of the longest, highest and deepest Roman structures can be found at List of ancient architectural records . Roman building ingenuity extended over bridges , aqueducts , and covered amphitheatres . Their sewerage and water supply works were remarkable and some systems are still in operation today. The only aspect of Roman construction for which very little evidence survives is the form of timber roof structures, none of which are thought to have survives intact. Nevertheless its is generally agreed however that the Romans used triangulated roof trusses as this is the only way they could have covered the immense spans they achieved, the longest exceeding 30 metres (see List of ancient roofs ). [ edit ] Medieval construction In the Middle Ages of Europe fortifications , castles and cathedrals were the greatest construction projects. The Roman building techniques were lost. [ edit ] Materials Most buildings in Northern Europe were constructed of timber until c.1000 AD. In Southern Europe adobe remained predominant. Brick continued to be manufactured in Italy throughout the period 600-1000 AD but elsewhere the craft of brickmaking had largely disappeared and with it the methods for burning tiles. Roofs were largely thatched. Houses were small and gathered around a large communal hall. Monasticism spread more sophisticated building techniques. The Cistercians may have been responsible for reintroducing brickmaking to the area from Holland, through Denmark and Northern Germany to Poland leading to Backsteingotik . Brick remained the most popular prestige material in these areas throughout the period. Elsewhere buildings were typically in timber or where it could be afforded, stone. Medieval stone walls were constructed using cut blocks on the outside of the walls and rubble infill, with weak lime mortars . The poor hardening properties of these mortars were a continual problem, and the settlement of the rubble filling of Romanesque and Gothic walls and piers is still a major cause for concern. [ edit ] Design There were no standard textbooks on building in the Middle Ages. Master craftsmen transferred their knowledge through apprenticeships and from father to son. Trade secrets were closely guarded, as they were the source of a craftsman's livelihood. Drawings only survive from the later period. Parchment was too expensive to be commonly used and paper did not appear until the end of the period. Models were used for designing structures and could be built in large scales. Details were mostly designed al full size on tracing floors, some of which survive. [ edit ] Labour In general medieval buildings were built by paid workers. Unskilled work was done by labourers paid by the day. Skilled craftsmen served apprenticeships or learned their trade from their parents. It is not clear how many women were invomembers of the guild holding a monopoly on a particular trade in a defined area (usually within the town walls). Towns were in general very small by modern standards and dominated by the dwellings of a small number of rich nobles or merchants and cathedrals and churches. [ edit ] Techniques Romanesque buildings of the period 600-1100 AD were entirely roofed in timber or had stone barrel vaults covered by timber roofs. The Gothic style of architecture with its vaults , flying buttresses and pointed gothic arches developed in the twelfth century and in the centuries that followed ever more incredible feats of constructional daring were achieved in stone. The resulting thin stone vaults and towering buildings were constructed entirely using rules derived by trial and error. Failure were frequent, particularly in difficult areas such as crossing towers. The resulting buildings remain astounding tributes to their builders. The pile driver was invented around 1500. [ edit ] Outstanding technical Achievements While the scale of fortifications and castle building in the Middle Ages was impressive, no buildings in this period can match the daring of the gothic cathedrals with their thin masonry vaults, and walls of glass. Outstanding examples are: Beauvais Cathedral , Chartres Cathedral , King's College Chapel and Notre Dame, Paris . [ edit ] Construction in the Renaissance The Renaissance in Italy, the invention of moveable type and the Reformation changed the character of building. The rediscovery of Vitruvius had a strong influence. During the Middle Ages buildings were designed by the people that built them. The master mason and master carpenters learnt their trades by word of mouth and relied on experience, models and rules of thumb to determine the sizes of building elements. Vitruvius however describes in detail the education of the perfect architect who he said must be skilled in all the arts and sciences. Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the first of the new style of architects. He started life as a goldsmith and educated himself in Roman architecture by studying ruins. He went on to engineer the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. [ edit ] Materials The major breakthroughs in this period were to do with the technology of conversion. Water mills in most of Western Europe were used to saw timber and convert trees into planks. Bricks were used in ever increasing quantities. In Italy the brickmakers were organised into guilds although the kilns were mostly in rural areas because of the risk of fire and easy availability of firewood and brickearth. Brickmakers typically paid by the brick which gave them an incentive to make them too small. As a result legislation was laid down regulating the minimum sizes and each town kept measures against which bricks had to be compared. An increasing amount of ironwork was used in roof carpentry for straps and tension members. The iron was fixed using forelock bolts. The screw-threaded bolt (and nut) could be made and are found in clockmaking in this period, but they were labour intensive and thus not used on large structures. Roofing was typically terracotta roof tiles. In Italy they followed Roman precedents. In Northern Europe plain tiles were used. Stone remained the material of choice where available for prestige buildings. [ edit ] Design The rebirth of the idea of an architect in the renaissance radically changed the nature of building design. Indeed Medieval buildings were conceived in totally different terms. The Renaissance reintroduced the classical style of architecture. Leon Battista Alberti's treatise on architecture raised the subject to a new level, defining architecture as something worthy of study by the aristocracy. Previously it was viewed merely as a technical art, suited only to the artisan. The resulting change in status of architecture and more importantly the architect is key to understanding the changes in the process of design. The Renaissance architect was often an artist (a painter or sculptor) who had little knowledge of building technology but a keen grasp of the rules of classical design. The architect thus had to provide detailed drawings for the craftsmen setting out the disposition of the various parts. This was what we call the process of design, from the Italian word for drawing. Occasionally the architect would get involved in particularly difficult technical problems but the technical side of architecture was mainly left up to the craftsmen. This change in the way buildings were designed had a fundamental difference on the way problems were approached. Where the Medieval craftsmen tended to approach a problem with a technical solution in mind, the Renaissance architect started with an idea of the what the end product need to look like and then searched around for a way of making it work. This led to extraordinary leaps forward in engineering. [ edit ] Labour Labour in the Renaissance was much he same as that in the Middle Ages: buildings were built by paid workers. Unskilled work was done by labourers paid by the day. Skilled craftsmen served apprenticeships or learned their trade from their parents. Craftsmen were organized in guilds which provided a limited form of building regulation in return for members of the guild holding a monopoly on a particular trade in a defined area (usually within the town walls). Towns were in general very small by modern standards and dominated by the dwellings of a small number of rich nobles or merchants and cathedrals and churches. [ edit ] Technical advances The wish to return to classical architecture created problems for the Renaissance buildings. The builders did not use concrete and thus comparable vaults and domes had to be replicated in brick or stone. The greatest technical feats were undoubtedly in these areas. The first major breakthrough was Brunelleschi's project for the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore . Brunelleschi managed to devise a way of building a huge dome without formwork, relying instead on the weight of the bricks and the way they were laid to keep them in position and the shape of the dome to keep it standing. The exact way the dome was built is still subject to heated debate today as it is not possible to take the dome apart to study its construction without destroying it. The dome is a double skin, linked by ribs, with a series of wooden and stone chains around it at intervals to attempt to deal with hoop stresses. Brunelleschi's dome was completed (up to the base of the lantern) in 1446. It's size however was soon surpassed by the dome of St Peter's, built using flying scaffolding supported on the cornices and constructed using two stone shells. [ edit ] Construction in the seventeenth century The seventeenth century saw the birth of modern science which would have profound effects on building construction in the centuries to come. The major breakthroughs were towards the end of the century when architect-engineers began to use experimental science to inform the form of their buildings. However it was not until the 18th century that engineering theory developed sufficiently to allow sizes of members to be calculated. Seventeenth century structures this relied strongly on experience, rules of thumb and the use of scale models. [ edit ] Materials The major breakthrough in this period was in the manufacture of glass , with the first cast plate glass being developed in France. Iron was increasingly employed in structures. Christopher Wren used iron hangers to suspend floor beams at Hampton Court Palace , and iron rods to repair Salisbury Cathedral and strength the dome of St Paul's Cathedral . Most buildings had stone ashlar surfaces covering rubble cores, held together with lime mortar. Experiments were made mixing lime with tarrass to provide a hydraulic mortar, but there was still no equivalent of the Roman Concrete. In England, France and Holland cut and gauged brickwork was used to provide detailed and ornate facades. The triangulated roof truss was introduced to England and used by Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren. There were many tools which have grown obsolete since the advent of modern technology, but which were previously used by all builders. Some major examples are the plumb-line , the slide-rule and the drafting compass . [ edit ] Methods Despite the birth of experimental science, the methods of construction in this period remained largely medieval. The same types of cranes that had been used in previous centuries were being still being employed. Flying scaffolds were employed at St Paul's Cathedral, England and in the dome of St Peters, Rome, but otherwise the same types of timber scaffolding that had been in use centuries before were retained. Cranes and scaffolding depended on timber. Complex systems of pulleys allowed comparatively large loads to be lifted, and long ramps were used to haul loads up to the upper parts of buildings. [ edit ] Construction in the eighteenth century The eighteenth century saw the development of many the ideas that had been born in the late seventeenth century. The architects and engineers became increasingly professionalised. Experimental science and mathematical methods began increasingly sophisticated and employed in buildings. At the same time the birth of the industrial revolution saw and increase in the size of cities and and increase in the pace and quantity of construction. [ edit ] Materials The major breakthroughs in this period were in the use of iron (both cast and wrought). Iron columns had been used in Wren's designs for the House of Commons and were used in several early 18th century churches in London, but these supported only galleries. In the second half of the eighteenth century the decreasing costs of iron production allowed the construction of major pieces of iron engineering. The Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale (1779) is a particularly notable example. Large scale mill construction required fire-proof buildings and cast iron became increasingly used for columns and beams to carry brick vaults for floors. The Louvre in Paris boasted an early example of a wrought iron roof. Steel was used in the manufacture of tools but could not be made in sufficient quantities to be used for building. Brick production increased markedly during this period. Many buildings throughout Europe were built of brick, but they were often coated in lime render, sometimes patterned to look like stone. Brick production itself changed little. Bricks were moulded by hand and fired in kilns no different to those used for centuries before. Terracotta in the form of Coade stone was used as an artificial stone in the UK. [ edit ] Construction in the nineteenth century: Industrial Revolution The industrial revolution was manifested in new kinds of transportation installations, such as railways , canals and macadam roads. These required large amounts of investment . New construction devices included steam engines , machine tools , explosives and optical surveying . As steel was mass-produced from the mid-19th century, it was used, in form of I-beams and reinforced concrete . Glass panes also went into mass production, and changed from luxury to every man's property. Plumbing appeared, and gave common access to drinking water and sewage collection . [ edit ] Construction in the twentieth century With the Second Industrial Revolution in the early 20th century, elevators and cranes made high rise buildings and skyscrapers possible, while Heavy equipments and power tools decreased the workforce needed. Other new technologies were prefabrication and computer-aided design . Trade unions were formed to protect construction workers' interests. Personal protective equipment such as hard hats and earmuffs also came into use. From the 20th century, governmental construction projects were used as a part of macroeconomic stimulation policies, especially during the Great depression (see New Deal ). In the end of the 20th century, ecology , energy conservation and sustainable development have become more important issues of construction. [ edit ] Construction history as an academic discipline The History of Construction is of interest to anyone who wants to know how and why things have been constructed the way they are. There is no established academic discipline of construction history but there are a growing number of researchers and academics working in this field who are structural engineers, archaeologists, architects, historians of technology and architectural historians. Although the subject has been studied since the Renaissance and there were a number of important studies in the nineteenth century, it largely went out of fashion in the mid-twentieth century. [ 1 ] In the last thirty years there has been an enormous increase in interest in this field, which is vital to the growing practice of building conservation. [ 2 ] [ edit ] Early writers on construction history The earliest surviving book detailing historical building techniques is the treatise of the Roman author, Vitruvius , but his appraoch was neither particularly scholarly nor particularly systematic. Much later, in the Renaissance , Vasari mentions Filippo Brunelleschi 's interest in researching Roman building techniques, although if he wrote anything on the subject it does not survive. In the seventeenth century, Rusconi's illustrations for his version of Leon Battista Alberti 's treatise explicitly show Roman wall construction but most of the interest in antiquity was in understanding its proportions and detail and the architects of the time were content to build using current techniques. While early archaeological studies and topographic works such as the engravings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi show Roman construction they were not explicitly analytical and much of what they do show is made up. [ edit ] Nineteenth century studies on construction history In the nineteenth century, lecturers increasingly illustrated their lectures with images of building techniques used in the past and these type of images increasingly appeared in construction text books, such as Rondelet's. The greatest advances however were made by English and French (and later German) architects attempting to understand, record and analyse Gothic buildings. Typical of this type of writing are the works of Robert Willis in England, Viollet-le-Duc in France and Ungewitter in Germany. None of these however were seeking to suggest that the history of construction represented a new approach to the subject of architectural history. August Choisy was perhaps the first author to seriously attempt to undertake such a study. [ edit ] The early twentieth century studies of the construction history Santiago Heurta has suggested that it was modernism, with its emphasis on the employment of new materials, that abruptly ended the interest in construction history that appeared to have been growing in the last few decades of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. With the advent of concrete and steel frame construction, architects, who had been the chief audience for such studies, were no longer as interested as they had been in understanding traditional construction, which suddenly appeared redundant. Very little was thus published between 1920 and 1950. The revival of interest started in archaeology with the studies of Roman construction in the 1950s, but it was not until the 1980s that construction history began to emerge as an independent field. [ edit ] The late twentieth century By the end of the twentieth century steel and concrete construction were themselves becoming the subject of historical investigation.The Construction History Society [1] was formed in the UK in 1982. It produces the only academic international journal devoted to the subject annually. The First International Congress on Construction History was held in Madrid in 2003. [2] This was followed by the Second International Congress in 2006 [3] in Queens' College, Cambridge, England and the Third International Congress held in Cottbus in 2009. [4] The Fourth International Congress is scheduled to be held in Paris in 2012 [5] . Languages This page was last modified on 14 January 2011 at 22:11.
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