Bridges
Published on 22. June 2007
Book
Hardback
336 pages
978-0-393-73136-1 (ISBN)
Description
Bridges are such ubiquitous features of the built environment that we cross most of them barely acknowledging their presence. Certain bridges, however, command attention: for their utility facilitating travel from here to there; for their size, setting, beauty, or historical associations. Ordinary or spellbinding, every bridge is a response to a problem-the spanning of a river or other obstacle, solved more or less elegantly. This visual sourcebook surveys American bridges from coast to coast in terms of four fundamental structural types (beam, arch, truss, and suspension) and the special category of movable bridges (swing, lift, and bascule) showing how similar structural ideas have been addressed by different designers, refined over time, and rendered in various building materials. A special feature is "A Call for Preservation" of the American bridge engineering heritage by Eric DeLony, formerly chief of the Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service.
Reviews / Votes
"[H]ighly recommended for any college-level collection strong in either engineering or structural art." -- California Bookwatch "[H]ighly detailed caption information...makes every turned page an opportunity for deeper understanding." -- Civil Engineering "Every reader's knowledge should be enhanced by this book....[N]o better detailed history of bridges since 1750." -- Construction History "[T]his book will be an invaluable reference for architects, engineers and preservationists." -- Engineering News-Record "[F]ascinating." -- IA: Journal of the Society for Industrial Archaeology "[A]nother example that the as-of-now published titles in the Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebook series are a must have for architectural history buffs and barn, theater, canal, lighthouse and bridge enthusiasts alike." -- Traditional Building "Another excellent production by the Norton/Library of Congress team." -- Transactions of the Newcomen Society "[A book] equally worth recommending to those who build and maintain bridges and to readers only interested in the history of engineering. Full of interesting stories more popular than scholarly in character?offering a rich picture of past years in the history of bridgebuilding in America." -- GeophysicsMore details
Series
Edition
New
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 288 mm
Width: 228 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
1683 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-73136-1 (9780393731361)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Richard L. Cleary is associate professor in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin, and lives in Austin.