Background
Billington, David Perkins was born on June 1, 1927 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Nelson and Jane Newkirk (Coolbaugh) Billington.
( Spanish-born Félix Candela (19101997) is acknowledged ...)
Spanish-born Félix Candela (19101997) is acknowledged as a master builder who designed and built innovative thin shell concrete roof structures in Mexico. This book goes further, however, hailing Candela as a structural engineer whose elegant forms should be considered works of art. This handsomely designed volume begins by presenting the lineage of master builders and structural artists who preceded him, including those from the period of the Industrial Revolution. The authors then examine Candela’s life, studies, and experiences, and analyze his early thin shell designs. They focus on the geometric form that Candela eventually used to create his most important works, examine several of the structures in detail, compare them to the works of other contemporary structural artists, and discuss the most important features of his legacy: the conservation of natural resources by minimizing materials; the reduction of cost by intimately connecting design to construction, and the creation of beautiful forms.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300122098/?tag=2022091-20
( The Swiss engineer Robert Maillart (1872-1940) built br...)
The Swiss engineer Robert Maillart (1872-1940) built bridges and industrial buildings of startling originality. His innovative use of concrete, especially in the design of thin arch structures, and his introduction of a wide range of new engineering forms, make him a seminal figure in the history of modern engineering. Focusing on 14 of Maillart's major works, this book provides a stunning full-color visual presentation of engineering structures as works of art in their own right and as images for new possibilities in architecture.Previous studies of Maillart - including the pioneering essays by Sigfried Gidieon and Max Bill - were based on black and white illustrations taken in the 1930s. For this German and English dual language book, Maillart's Swiss structures were rephotographed under the author's supervision. With the added dimension of color and looked at from the point of view of a wellknown structural engineer, they present Maillart in a totally new perspective.Billington explains in detail how Maillart's ideas unfold from his first design, the 1901 Zuoz Bridge, to his last, the 1940 Lachen Bridge. He analyzes these works using engineering criteria and raises the provocative notion that structure is a fertile ground for new forms that remain to be realized in structural engineering and in architecture.David P. Billington is Professor of Civil Engineering at Princeton University.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262023105/?tag=2022091-20
( The massive dams of the American West were designed to ...)
The massive dams of the American West were designed to serve multiple purposes: improving navigation, irrigating crops, storing water, controlling floods, and generating hydroelectricity. Their construction also put thousands of people to work during the Great Depression. Only later did the dams’ baneful effects on river ecologies spark public debate. Big Dams of the New Deal Era tells how major water-storage structures were erected in four western river basins. David P. Billington and Donald C. Jackson reveal how engineering science, regional and national politics, perceived public needs, and a river’s natural features intertwined to create distinctive dams within each region. In particular, the authors describe how two federal agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, became key players in the creation of these important public works. By illuminating the mathematical analysis that supported large-scale dam construction, the authors also describe how and why engineers in the 1930s most often opted for massive gravity dams, whose design required enormous quantities of concrete or earth-rock fill for stability. Richly illustrated, Big Dams of the New Deal Era offers a compelling account of how major dams in the New Deal era restructured the landscapeboth politically and physicallyand why American society in the 1930s embraced them wholeheartedly.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806137959/?tag=2022091-20
(This comprehensive biography traces the life and works of...)
This comprehensive biography traces the life and works of Robert Maillart, one of the most important engineers and designers of the twentieth century. His career developed around a central issue of modern technological society: the debate between two antithetical views of engineering opposing applied science, which relied on general mathematical theories for understanding structures against design, which Maillart championed. Maillart considered structures not merely works of utility but also as works of art. As utilitarian objects, he created a series of innovations of lasting significance. Aesthetically, Maillart shaped his three innovations in concrete to create surprising and often stunning new forms. Providing an analysis of these innovations, this biography also connects Maillart's aesthetic ideas with the private and professional context in which he worked.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521571324/?tag=2022091-20
( Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691102929/?tag=2022091-20
( What do structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brookl...)
What do structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the concrete roofs of Pier Luigi Nervi have in common? According to this book, now in its first paperback edition, all are striking examples of structural art, an exciting form distinct from either architecture or machine design. Aided by a number of stunning illustrations, David Billington discusses leading structural engineer-artists, such as John A. Roebling, Gustave Eiffel, Fazlur Khan, and Robert Maillart.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069102393X/?tag=2022091-20
(An exploration of the outstanding work of four Swiss engi...)
An exploration of the outstanding 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 important to consider them as artists, for aesthetics played a major role in their design philosophy. He explains that their shared approach to design was developed 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 individual contributions to structural engineering. This volume features many newly commissioned photographs, including images of important new structures such as the Charles River Bridge in Boston, completed by Menn in 2002.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300097867/?tag=2022091-20
Billington, David Perkins was born on June 1, 1927 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Nelson and Jane Newkirk (Coolbaugh) Billington.
Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Princeton University, 1950. Postgraduate (Fulbright fellow), University Louvain, Belgium, 1951. Postgraduate (Fulbright fellow), University Ghent, Belgium, 1952.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Union College, 1990. Doctor of Science (honorary), Grinnell College, 1991. Doctor of Engineering (honorary), Notre Dame University, 1997.
Structural engineer Roberts & Schaefer Company, New York City, 1952-1960. Associate professor civil engineering Princeton University, New Jersey, 1960-1964, professor civil engineering, since 1964, Gordon Y.S. Wu professor engineering, since 1996. Visiting professor Technology University Delft, Netherlands, 1966-1967.
A.D. White professor-at-large Cornell University, 1987-1993. Robert Noyes visiting professor Grinnell College, 2006. Guest curator Princeton University Art Museum, 2003, with Maria Garlock, 2008.
Consultant in field.
( Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account...)
( What do structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brookl...)
(An exploration of the outstanding work of four Swiss engi...)
( The massive dams of the American West were designed to ...)
( Spanish-born Félix Candela (19101997) is acknowledged ...)
(This comprehensive biography traces the life and works of...)
(This comprehensive biography traces the life and works of...)
( The Swiss engineer Robert Maillart (1872-1940) built br...)
(The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engin...)
(332 pages)
With United States Navy, 1945-1946. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences, American Concrete Institute (honorary). Member National Academy of Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers (honorary, 3 awards 1956-1957, History and Heritage award 1986, George Winter award 1992), International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, International Association Shell Structures (honorary), Society for History Technology (Usher prize with J. Doig 1995).
Married Phyllis Bergquist, August 26, 1951. Children: David Junior, Elizabeth Billington Fox, Jane Billington Flucker, Philip, Stephen, Sarah.