Swiss Information – Tourism & Products

Swiss Universities English

An exploration of the great work of four Swiss engineers and their teachers who form an impressive group of structural artists in the 20th century: Wilhelm Ritter (1847-1906); Robert Maillart (1872-1940); Othmar Ammann (1879-1965); Pierre Lardy (1902-1956); Heinz Isler (b. 1926); and Christian Menn (b. 1927). David Billington, who has written widely on these engineers, argues that it is essential to consider them as artists, for aesthetics played a major role in their design philosophy. He explains that their shared approach to design was formulated while they attended the Federal Technological Institute in Zurich: Maillart and Amman studied with Ritter there, and Isler and Menn studied under Lardy. Billington focuses on the engineers' artistic approach to bridge design and construction, and he discusses their impressive person contributions to structural engineering. This volume features galore newly commissioned photographs, including images of important new structures such as the Charles River Bridge in Boston, finished by Menn in 2002.

From the PublisherThe volume comes with an exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum from March 8 to June 15, 2002 (other venues to be announced). Distributed for the Princeton University Art Museum

About the AuthorDavid P. Billington is Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and conductor of the Programme in Architecture and Engineering at Princeton University.

Most helpful client reviews

3 of 6 persons found the following review helpful.
Nice pictures... but not genuinely any technical data...
By A
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a kid, I'm just too lazy to bother making an account just to write a review. I mean, come on, that's what this "kid's review" option is actually for, isn't it?

THE REVIEW:

This book holds a heap of good photographs of noteworthy bridges designed by Swiss structural engineers, but it's a tad light on supplying any technical data... overall, this book's good for looking at bridges from an artistic, design-oriented point of view, but isn't particularly utile if you're, say, attempting to DRAW A SCALE DIAGRAM OF A BRIDGE IN THIS BOOK AND YOU WERE TOLD TO BUY THIS BOOK FOR YOUR UNIVERSITY ENGINEERING COURSE because it lacks concrete facts in regards to spans, drapes, or other distances that would be useful. Not a bad book at all; rather good, actually, but not very utile for technical analysis. That salginatobel bridge pops up all over the place, eh?

See all 1 client reviews...