Engineering Aesthetics
Structural engineering combines apparent contradictions – science and art, intuition and empiricism – but its full creative potential is often underestimated. Creativity in engineering goes far beyond the usual intuitive interpretations of the basic principles of physics and geometry and of the building code to establish new, non-standard techniques. A structure is often discussed merely in terms of economy and efficiency, but it also incorporates aesthetic factors. The combination of both aspects is crucial, as the Spanish engineer EDUARDO TORROJA has observed: “The functional purpose and the artistic and structural requirements must be considered integrally from the initial conception of the project. The artist should not be required at the last moment to give artistic appearance to what is already completed, and the technician’s task should not be limited to only devising means of keeping the structure up. Both should work together to form an integrated whole.”1 The engineering discipline, at its very best, forms a complex synergy that OVE ARUP called “total design” or “total architecture”, wherein building design, structure, and construction are integrated to form a coherent, intertwined process and project.
to be found imagination, intuition, and experience, and which demands a certain freedom in the creative agent. It adheres, in short, to the same laws as those of artistic creation. Thus it presents to some minds an inconvenience, in that such laws cannot be included in any chapter of the Building Regulations.”2 However, throughout history engineers have not always received the recognition that they deserve as both designers and problem- solvers. What is design to an engineer, where do the focal points of innovation lie and what does the creative process of problem-solving look like? What appears in their mind’s eye as they design and what do they want to render visible?3 How do they influence the design of not just the technical elements but of the formal aspects of architecture as well?
In engineering culture there has been a shift in the understanding of structure’s influence on the shaping of form and space, of its relationship to aesthetics and its impact on pragmatic and theoretical concerns. Structures are often presented poetically as an engineering accomplishment, because they both combine and arise from creative and technical thinking. FÉLIX CANDELA, in emphasising efficiency, economy and elegance, noted that “design and structural design, of course, is an intellectual process of synthetic nature in which is
On Inventors, Entrepreneurs, Problem-Solvers and Designers
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Nina Rappaport
1 Eduardo
Torroja: Philosophy of Structures. Berkeley 1958. 2 Felix Candela: Toward a New Philosophy of Structure. Student publication, School of Design, NCSU, 5, No 3, 1956. 3 See Eugene S. Ferguson: Engineering in the Mind’s Eye, Cambridge, MA, 1992. 4 Sylvie Deswart, Bertrand Lemoine: L’Architecture et les Ingenieurs. Paris 1979. Below The Penguin Pool at the London Zoo (GB) 1935, Ove Arup Opposite, top Boots Pure Drug Company, Beeston (GB) 1933, E. Owen Williams Opposite, centre Raleigh Arena, North Carolina (US) 1953, Matthew Nowicki / Fred Severud Opposite, bottom Spiral ramp inside the Fiat factory at Lingotto, Turin (IT) 1926, Giacomo Mattè-Trucco