Structure In Architecture: History, Design And Innovation

Architectural Review, The, July, 2000 by Bill Addis

By Roland J. Mainstone. Aldershot: Ashgate. 999. [pounds]80

During 40 years Roland Mainstone has been a prolific and original writer on developments in the history of architectural structures. This collection of 22 of his papers demonstrates their quality and authority. The greatest achievements in masonry construction take pride of place in the Roman Pantheon, Hagia Sophia, Brunelleschi's Dome at Florence, the dome of St. Peter's. Other papers are devoted to more particular matters -- the hammer-beam roof over Westminster Hall, iron reinforcement in the Louvre, John Smeaton's use of hydraulic cement in the Eddystone lighthouse, and ribbed vaults and squinch arches in cathedrals.

These studies of ancient buildings are not dry academic affairs. The author has sought to get inside the minds of the men who created them by learning about each of the buildings as intimately as possible, first-hand, almost literally stone by stone, as well as from contemporary written sources. Dr Mainstone reminds the reader constantly of the need to understand thoroughly how building structures work before they can be responsibly repaired or restored -- wise counsel for any old building.

Preceding the papers on individual buildings are five fascinating studies of the development of our understanding of structural behaviour and the origins of modern structural design methods. They show how our capacity to invent in intuitive ways was augmented during many centuries by devising mathematical representations of forces and the stability of structures. (One of these can be found in Architectural Review, April 1968, pp303-310.)

These papers should help destroy the popular myth that we do not know how cathedrals and great works of antiquity were designed or built; we do not know everything, but we do know much. They should be essential reading for everyone engaged in restoring and conserving buildings, and will be equally rewarding for the sheer pleasure of better understanding the enormity of our debt to the technical achievements of past centuries.