First Conference of the Construction History Society

Queens’ College, Cambridge
11-12 April 2014
The papers are published in the proceedings
 
Friday 11 April
Conference day one
 
9.00-9.30 am Arrival at Queen’s and registration
9:30am Welcome talk: Fitzpatrick Hall
10:00 –11:15 Early Morning Sessions (1 & 2)
 

Session 1 Fitzpatrick HallIron BridgesSession Chair: Bill Addis   James Miller, Jackie Heath The History of Defect and Repairs of Iron      Bridge Dermot O’Dwyer, Ronald Cox Old Ennisnag Bridge Inge Bertels and Ine Wouters Production and assembly marks in wrought iron structures

Session 2 Bowett RoomMeasuring and RecordingSession Chair: Robert Carvais   John Gelder Two Egyptian curves revisited Francisco Javier Rodríguez Méndez Spatial unification of Romanesque churches in Zamora and its influence on the buttress system Piero Gilento A proposal for cataloguing the building techniques in Roman-Byzantine and Islamic Jordanian Hawrăn

 
11:15-11:30 Coffee and biscuits
 
11:30-12:45 Late Morning Sessions (3 & 4)
 

Session 3 Fitzpatrick HallContracts and FinanceSession Chair: Linda Clarke   Gabriel Byng ‘Fabric Wardens’ and the Organisation of Parish Church Construction in the Late Middle Ages Melody Mobus Surviving late payments: Strategies of Christopher Wren’s masons from Burford Conor Lucey The developer, the builder, his contractors and their tradesmen

Session 4 Bowett RoomPost-1945 ConstructionSession Chair: Nicholas Bill   Stephanie Van de Voorde The Emergence of a new Generation of Building Products in Post-War Belgium. The Case of Lightweight Concrete Christopher Domin Hang the Roof: Building the Aerial Site [Lightweight Roofs] Benedetta Stoppioni New Technologies for a New Society: German Museum Architecture after 1945

 
12:45-2:00 Lunch in Cripps Dining Hall
 
2:00-3:00 Keynote Lecture Fitzpatrick Hall
 
Richard Harris
The Fruit of Dendrochronology: New Insights into Roof Carpentry in England, Germany and France
3:00-4:15 Afternoon Sessions (5, 6)
 

Session 5 Fitzpatrick HallCarpentry and JoinerySession Chair: Stefan Holzer   David Yeomans, Hugh Harrison The construction and structure of medieval gates Patrick Fleming, Sofia Singler, Michael Ramage Construction History and Alteration of the Oak Roof Structure of the Sidney Sussex College Hall Robert Beech Form v Function: The Structural Development of Early fifteenth-century Hammer-beam roofs

Session 6 Bowett RoomCements and RendersSession Chair: Ine Wouters   Salvatore Aprea The early German production and use of modern hydraulic binders: between English influences and the search for a scientific approach, 1817-1839 Y. Govaerts, A. Verdonck, M. De Bouw, W. Meulebroeck The introduction of ready-mix rendering mortars for stone imitation in Belgium [1920-1940] Maris Mändel Dreaming of a Cementless Future: The Story of Silicalcite

 
4:15-4:30 Coffee and Biscuits
 
4:30-6:30 Late Afternoon Sessions (7, 8)
 

Session 7 Fitzpatrick HallVaults, Domes and CastlesSession Chair: Santiago Huerta   Jacques Heyman Wren’s domes Cristina Gonzales-Longo The transformation of Drumlanring Castle at the end of seventeenth-century Dimitris Theodossopoulos Stone barrel Vaulting in late medieval churches in Scotland David Wendland, Maria Aranda Alonso, Alexander Kobe The vault with curvilinear ribs in the “hall of Arms” in the Albrechsburg Meissen: studies on the concept, design and construction of a complex late Gothic rib vault

Session 8 Bowett Room20th Century ConstructionSession Chair: Tom Leslie   Fiona Smyth Acoustic Design in the 1930s: Robinson and Keefe’s Church of Corpus Christi, Dublin Kenneth F. Robson, Somik Ghosh Lean Principles in the Design and Construction of the Empire State Building Laura Greco The evolution of building techniques in the Italian Alpine context from the 1950s-1960s Oscar Fiertes, Joaquin Fernandez The traditional wooden shipyards on the northwest coast of Spain

End of first day
Free evening in Cambridge
 
Saturday 12 April
Conference day two
 
8.30-9.30 am Morning Registration for those arriving day two
9:30am Welcome to Day two: Fitzpatrick Hall
10:00 –11:15 Opening Sessions day two (9, 10)
 

Session 1 Fitzpatrick HallThe Building WorldSession Chair: Robert Thorne   Christine Wall Recording the ‘building world’: how oral history transforms construction history Robert C. McWilliam Transferring construction technology and conflicts of interest – a century ago Linda Clarke Building by Direct Labour: the significance of DLOs.

Session 2 Bowett RoomVaulting AmbitionsSession Chair: David Wendland   Carmen Pérez-de-los-Rios, Enrique Rabasa-Díaz Stretched templates in Gothic taste-charge construction Alberto Calderón Startegies for the accord of Gothic and Classical stone construction systems in 16th and 17th century buildings in Northern Spain. Elena Pliego de Andrés, Alberto Sanjurjo Álvarez Robert Willis’ Contribution to Understanding the Gothic Flamboyant Style

 
11:30-11:45 Coffee and biscuits
 
11:45-12:45 Keynote lecture Fitzpatrick Hall
 
Mark Wilson-Jones
Thoughts on Greek and Roman Building Construction
 
12:45-2:00 Lunch in Cripps Dining Hall
 
2:00-2:30 Fitzpatrick Hall
Annual General Meeting of the Construction History Society (all welcome)
 
2:30-3:00 Fitzpatrick Hall
Bill Addis (editor of Construction History)
The contribution made by the Journal Construction History towards establishing the history of construction a discipline.
 
3:00-4:15 Mid-Afternoon Sessions (11, 12)
 

Session 11 Fitzpatrick HallThe Concrete WorldSession Chair: Hermann Schlimme   Stefan M. Holzer Mixing concrete – remaks on the early history of modern Concrete Jan Moksnes Concrete Platforms in the North Sea –a golden era for development of advanced concrete structures Francesco Carlo Toso An alpine hydroelectric construction site. Works for the utilisation of hydraulic resources in Alta Valtellina 1907-1930

Session 4 Bowett RoomDeveloping MaterialsSession Chair: Michael Heaton   Chris How The British Cut Clasp Nail Yiting Pan Timber Supply in Colonial China. 1840-1940 Yu-sen Chou, Dimitris Theodossopoulos Building Material Migration : Imported Brick and Localization in Taïwan in 17th Century.

 
4:15-4:30 Coffee and Biscuits
 
4:30-6:30 Final Sessions (13, 14)
 

Session 13 Fitzpatrick HallTransferring ideasSession Chair: Inge Bertels   L. Dekeyser, A. Verdonck Knowledge transfer of vernacular finishing techniques in the interwar period: on the history of cimorné ender Christiane Weber Frei Otto and model testing: “I cannot trust the pure calculation, if this cannot be verified with a model” Robert Carvais A Digital Edition of the Didactic Knowledge of Construction: the Courses of Antoine Desgodets José Antonio García-Ares, Fabio Tellia Some instances of Arch and Vaulting Construction at the New York Public Library

Session 4 Bowett RoomInnovative structuresSession Chair: Bill Addis   Dermot O’Dwyer, Jay Cummins, Ronald Cox John Rennies’s Dublin cast-iron trusses Paul Bell Some examples of structural innovation in the construction of English churches in the long 19th century Alberto Pugnale, Alberto Bologna Dante Bini’s air structures (1964-1979). From early Italian prototypes to the Australian experience Dr Luciano Cardellicchio Pier Luigi Nervi vs Fazlur Khan: the developing of the outrigger system for skyscrapers

 
6:30-6/45 Closing Words: Fitzpatrick Hall
7:00 Drinks Reception Old Kitchens
7:30 Gala Dinner in Old Hall (Optional)