Engineering Between History and Future
Abstract
My students often ask me: “Tell me, prof, what is the use of history of civil engineering?”, revisiting the question that opens Marc Bloch's famous book "The Historian's Craft". For some time now, I have been responding to their provocation (I teach civil engineering history) by telling 3 short stories: the stories of three engineers who lived in the nineteenth century, in the twentieth century and in the first century of the new millennium.
The first is the story of Charles, born in 1810 in France and a graduate of the École Polytechnique. Charles tells in first person all the transformations he saw in the world of structural engineering in the nineteenth century: materials, construction techniques, and calculation theory developed so rapidly that we went form the 40-meter span cast-iron Coalbrookdale arch bridge to the 500-meter span Gerber truss Firth of Forth bridge.
The story of Giulio, born in 1900 in Rome and graduated in engineering, is similar. He tells us too of the many technical changes linked to reinforced concrete in Italy and around the world, embedded in the political and social history of the twentieth century. In particular, he tells how a great difficulty such as the fascist autarkic propaganda triggered the most interesting experiments of post-war Italy. In particular, he recalls how reinforced concrete, just born in the early 20th century, underwent two genetic mutations in few decades: thin vaults and prestressing, so useful during reconstruction after World War II.
Neo Jane, born in Botswana in 2000, tells the last story. She predicts the story of structures in the 21st century. In particular, how everything changed in her university years, after the covid-19 pandemic. And how new rare earths materials applied in bridges, new transportation paradigms, new theories have led to very fast transformations in structures.
The three fictional stories should serve to clarify to my students what is the point of studying and researching history in structural engineering.
