The Tower And The Bridge

An essential exploration of the engineering aesthetics of celebrated structures from long-span bridges to high-rise buildings What do structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the concrete roofs of Pier Luigi Nervi have in common? According to The Tower and the Bridge, all are striking examples of structural art, an exciting area distinct from either architecture or machine design. Aided by stunning photographs, David Billington discusses the technical concerns and artistic principles underpinning the well-known projects of leading structural engineer-artists, including Othmar Ammann, Félix Candela, Gustave Eiffel, Fazlur Khan, Robert Maillart, John Roebling, and many others. A classic work, The Tower and the Bridge introduces readers to the fundamental aesthetics of engineering.

Tower Bridge, close to the Tower of London, is one of the best-known and most recognizable bridges in the world. Opened on 30 June 1894, this combined suspension and bascule bridge was designed by architect Sir Horace Jones and engineer Sir John Wolfe Barry.This new book, published to mark the 125th anniversary of its opening, will explore the history of the bridge, set it into the context of the River Thames and its crossings, and will, above all, focus on its design and construction. Highly illustrated with old and new images, from material held in the London Metropolitan Archives to specially commissioned photographs, Tower Bridge: History * Engineering * Design is a major new illustrated study of a remarkable piece of architecture and engineering.

Discover underground London, secret London, suburban London, and much more, on a revealing whistlestop city tour.

Tower Bridge is one of the most famous bridges in the world. Designed by Sir Horace Jones (1819-1887) and engineer Sir John Wolfe Barry (1836-1918) over a period of eight years, it was the largest and most advanced bascule bridge ever completed when it opened in 1894, requiring 11,000 tons of steel and involving more than 400 construction workers. This impressive feat of engineering helped sustain the growing commercial activity at the docks and warehouses in East London, and the sudden influx of daily commuters brought in from the newly built London Bridge station. Still in full use today, the bridge is lifted an average of 850 times a year. This Victorian masterpiece remains a highly important crossing on the River Thames, as well as being one of London's defining landmarks. This compelling album of photographs by Harry Cory Wright allows us to experience the awe-inspiring structure of Tower Bridge in exquisite detail, from the intricate machinery and original mechanisms inside the control rooms and secret corridors, to the great cavernous space within the bascule chamber. It includes an interview with Senior Technical Officer Glen Ellis, who shares his own daily experience of lifting the bridge, evoking an incredibly vivid sense of 'being there'.

A cultural history of gigantism in architecture and digital culture, from the Eiffel Tower to the World Trade Center. The gigantic is everywhere, and gigantism is manifest in everything from excessively tall skyscrapers to globe-spanning digital networks. In this book, Henriette Steiner and Kristin Veel map and critique the trajectory of gigantism in architecture and digital culture—the convergence of tall buildings and networked infrastructures—from the Eiffel Tower to One World Trade Center. They show how these two forms of gigantism intersect in the figure of the skyscraper with a transmitting antenna on its roof, a gigantic building that is also a nodal point in a gigantic digital infrastructure. Steiner and Veel focus on two paradigmatic tower sites: the Eiffel Tower and the Twin Towers of the destroyed World Trade Center (as well as their replacement, the One World Trade Center tower). They consider, among other things, philosophical interpretations of the Eiffel Tower; the design and destruction of the Twin Towers; the architectural debates surrounding the erection of One World Trade Center on the Ground Zero site; and such recent examples of gigantism across architecture and digital culture as Rem Koolhaas's headquarters for China Central TV and the phenomenon of the “tech giant.” Examining the cultural, architectural, and media history of these towers, they analyze the changing conceptions of the gigantism that they represent, not just as physical structures but as sites for the projection of cultural ideas and ideals.

The London Stone at Staines marks the ancient western boundary of the jurisdiction of the City of London. The Lord Mayor and Corporation’s conservancy of the Thames extended east from there as far as Yantlet in Kent. This is the stretch of the river documented in 'Liquid History'. Drawing on the resources of English Heritage’s unrivalled photographic archives, the book records a journey along the length of the tidal river and over almost 150 years. We see the rural Thames as it approaches London, riverside towns, the civic and commercial development of the riverbanks, the working docks and warehouses, the development of the web of bridges that now links north and south, barges, sailing ships and warships, the great flood defences and a tiny beach that flourished briefly at the Tower of London. Featuring the work of pioneers of photography and some of the great topographical photographers of the 20th century, and with a fascinating commentary by Stephen Croad, 'Liquid History' chronicles the ebb and flow of the life of the river.

When Helen arrived in a small African country with her husband to run the bar and restaurant they had recently purchased she found herself having accustom herself to a different culture and religion if she was to survive in her new homeland. Life became i