Medieval Structural Design 1

[Ussuri]

I have always been fascinated with old medieval structures, castles in particular, but also cathedrals, churches, abbeys etc but I have always wondered how they were designed.

Was it done by rule of thumb, if so do we still know these rules? Was it trial and error? If something fell down did they just start again? or did they actually do design calculations to substantiate things?

And another thing, I wonder if they did drawings or just arrived on site and thought 'OK, that stone there, that one over there'.

I find it amazing that we were able to build such enormous structures all those years ago.

Does anyone have any ideas? If there were designs/calculations/drawings made, and they still exist I would be really interested in seeing them?

 

[rhodie]

I second the McCauley reference. Quite elaborate for children's books.

I distinctly remember from a college lecture that the Doric-styled Greek Parthenon was built with inversely cambered columns designed to force eye-level perspective to see an aligned and falsely right angled ceiling line.
It only appears to be a true right angle, but the difference is something like a matter of feet.

I wonder if these Greek (pre-medieval) structures could have even been erected in the absence of calculations. I imagine the engineering and constructing business was impressively numbers driven even compared to modern standards.

 

[taoofeng]

You might go to Barnes & Noble (or Amazon) on-line and do a search on Jacques Heyman. He's a retired Univ of Cambridge prof whos' written some interesting history of engineering books, including The Science of Structural Engineering, Structural Analysis:A Historical Approach and The Stone Skeleton, as well as a half a dozen more.

 

[GregLocock]

Heyman was my lecturer, mentioned above. I hadn't realised he'd written books. Thanks for the heads-up.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[unclesyd]

Greglocok,
One should pay attention in class. I would be willing to bet he mention that he was going to be or was an author during a lecture.


Back to the subject.
In the US the History Channel has be running a series of programs on Stonemasons, Templar's, and Freemasons. The Stonemasons was so revered that they were able to roam freely all over Europe and the British Isles to work anywhere that suited their fancy, thus the original Freemasons. "Boomers" in today's vernacular.

 

[cawse001]

Ussuri,

The books, Why Buildings Stand Up and Why Buildings Fall Down by Mario Salvadori provide some insight into the historical approach to structural design, including a discussion on the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur mentioned by Ashereng.

Cheers

NB