1st Edition

Down to Earth Foundations Past and Present: The Invisible Art of the Builder

162 Pages

by CRC Press

162 Pages

by CRC Press

Also available as eBook on:

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Description

Written in straightforward non-technical language, with numerous diagrams and photographs, this book takes a look at ‘the invisible art’ of the great builders: how they founded their constructions in the earth and strove to understand and combat the natural forces, such as earth pressures, water, landslides, earthquakes, and almost imperceptible geological changes, with which they had to contend.... Read more

Introduction
Part 1: The Past
1. The Earth, Animal Life and Mankind
2. The Ziggurat: Invention in Ancient Mesopotamia
3. The Invisible and the Visible in the Egyptian Pyramids
4. The Art of Foundations: Greek Elegance and Roman Solidity
5. A Refined Approach to Foundations: Chine in the First Millennium
6. A Few Hidden errors in Medieval Architecture
7. The Rampant, the Vault and the Dome: the Itinerary of an Idea through several Millennia

Part 2: The Last Tow Hundred Years
8. Coulomb Ushers in the Scientific Approach
9. The Panama Canal: an Ocean-to-Ocean Cutting with Multiple Side Effects
10. An Architecture that Defies the Heavens
11. The Damming Rivers: Overloads to Make the Earth Tremble
12. Footholds on the Sea Floor
13. Under the Earth

Part 3: The Work of Time
14. The Permanence of the Earth’s Burden
15. Submersion by the Sea
16. Sudden Destruction: Earthquakes

Conclusion
Bibliography
Subject and Author Index