Kunst und Maschine: 500 Jahre Maschinenlinien in Bild und Skulptur by Peter Friess

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 697 age already done and being perpetuated by government money for scientific-type research by engineering teachers, Design Paradigms pro­ vides nine historical chapters on engineering failures, from the haul­ ing of heavy monolithic components of ancient Greek temples to the possible future failure of one or more of the currently popular cable-stayed suspension bridges. The chapter on “The Design Climate for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge” explains how the success of the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson at New York (whose design represented a radical departure from the designs of several American suspension bridges in the tradition of Roebling’s 1883 Brooklyn Bridge) led to a series of long, narrow, and inadequately stiffened suspension bridges that culminated in 1940 in the ill-fated Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The story of that bridge, Petroski writes, “reveals the myopia that can occur in the wake of prolonged and remarkable success and that is endemic to the design process itself.” Teachers can supplement the book by exploring its bibliography of more than 200 titles, all in English, and by making use of the American Society for Engineering Education’s “Engineering Case Li­ brary” (described in MechanicalEngineering [March 1983], pp. 68—71); the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ (London) Engineering Prog­ ress through Trouble, ed. R. R. Whyte (1975); and other engineers’ commentaries on design experience. Finally, Petroski suggests the possibilities of undergraduate courses in engineering history, taught by “reflective engineers who have expe­ rienced engineering first-hand,” focused on “engineering thinking about the role of failure in achieving success, and not a mere recita­ tion of engineering achievements.” This does appear to be an ap­ proach that might interest engineering students and help them to “learn from the masters how to develop engineering judgment” (p. 186). Eugene S. Ferguson Mr. Ferguson is a former teacher of mechanical engineering sciences (1946-57) but not engineering design. His Engineering and the Mind's Eye (1992) borrowed ideas and data from To Engineer Is Human. Kunst und Maschine: 500 Jahre Maschinenlinien in Bild und Skulptur. By Peter Friess. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1993. Pp. 267; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. DM 80.00. It is obvious that art and technology have always been related, if only by the mere fact that artists make use of a variety of tools such as pencils, brushes, and chisels. It is less obvious that in the course of history a variety of machines were developed to enrich artists’ possibilities for expression. Kunst und Maschine, written by Peter Friess as a Ph.D. dissertation, presents a survey of such machines and the 698 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE way in which they have served artists’ needs since about 1430. Friess does not distinguish machines from tools by looking at the energy source. In his book a device is called machine when it determines the direction in which a line is drawn, contrary to a tool, which the artist’s hand guides. The authorjustifies this way of defining the concept of a machine by a quote from Vitruvius’s De Architecture/,, book 7, and other references. Most of the machines described are mechanical in nature; a few of them use optical principles in addition; only the computer is an elec­ tronic device. In chapters 4—9 six types of machines are discussed. Perspective machines are used to make drawings that take into ac­ count rules of perspective like those developed by Alberti. A series of four machines by Diirer shows the struggle to reconcile these rules with practical requirements such as usability, precision, and scope of the drawing. The linear anamorphose is an exaggerated perspective and as such does not yield a separate type, but the circular anamor­ phose does require a different type of drawing machine. A third type is the profile portrait machine, to which the silhouette drawing machine and the French physionotrace belong. Grid machines pro­ duce grid patterns of circles, spirals, or straight lines. By varying the spacing between the lines and the width of the lines, these grids are used to suggest an image. Sculpture machines are the fifth type dealt with; the need for mass reproduction was one of the driving forces behind...