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Colossal: Engineering Modernity
Suez Canal Statue of Liberty Eiffel Tower Panama Canal
von Darcy Grimaldo GrigsbyThe Suez Canal came first, in 1869, the Panama Canal, last, in 1914; in between, and, in rapid succession, came the Statue of Liberty, 1886, and the Eiffel Tower, 1889. Brilliant, counterintutive, Colossal shows that these awesome monoliths - each usually seen alone as a wonder - have a single, tightly entwined history.
Three Frenchmen - Ferdinand de Lesseps, Gustave Eiffel, and Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, - were the moving spirits behind the four enterprises. Firsthand experience of the giant monuments of Ancient Egypt shaped the vast ambitions of these men. They shared as well a fervid belief that modern materials and technologies would enable them to rival the builders of the Pharaohs. As Colossal follows the paths of the three Frenchmen and the fates of their visionary projects, it tells a spellbinding story that happens also to be an entirely new sociopolitical and cultural history of engineering.
the illustrations in this book are fascinating records of building projects that did change the world. Darcy Grigsby is a gifted writer, equally adept at explaining the intricacies of scale drawing and 19th-century nationalism. Colossal is a book for the general reader as well as specialists in the history of art and architecture.
Three Frenchmen - Ferdinand de Lesseps, Gustave Eiffel, and Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, - were the moving spirits behind the four enterprises. Firsthand experience of the giant monuments of Ancient Egypt shaped the vast ambitions of these men. They shared as well a fervid belief that modern materials and technologies would enable them to rival the builders of the Pharaohs. As Colossal follows the paths of the three Frenchmen and the fates of their visionary projects, it tells a spellbinding story that happens also to be an entirely new sociopolitical and cultural history of engineering.
the illustrations in this book are fascinating records of building projects that did change the world. Darcy Grigsby is a gifted writer, equally adept at explaining the intricacies of scale drawing and 19th-century nationalism. Colossal is a book for the general reader as well as specialists in the history of art and architecture.