Great Fire Research Articles

“Like a Furnace Burning and Turning” – London in Peter Ackroyd’s The Great Fire of London

Unlike the two subsequent novels, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983) and Hawksmoor (1985), PeterAckroyd’s first novel, The Great Fire of London (1982), was not published to high critical acclaim. However, thenovel establishes its author’s concept of his fictional London, which focuses primarily on the city’s unofficial,off-the-record history. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that although it is a seemingly unambitious work anda relatively raw text, especially due to its explicit treatment of the theme of male homosexuality and the story’s bleakending, The Great Fire of London can be understood as a kind of a “proto-text” containing all the major definingaspects of its author’s fictional city, which are explored in more in-depth ways in his later, more mature Londonnovels.

“Building a New Vision of the Past in the Sasanian Empire: The Sanctuaries of Kayānsīh and the Great Fires of Iran”

AbstractThis article analyzes how Zoroastrian holy sites as celebrated in the Avesta or elaborated in later, related traditions, emerged as important architectural and ritual centers in late antiquity. Instead of ancient foundations whose details were lost in the depths of time, this paper argues that some of the holiest sanctuaries of the Zoroastrian religion, including Ādur Gušnasp, Ādur Farnbāg, Ādur Burzēn-Mihr, Ādur Karkōy and Lake Kayānsīh, emerged no earlier than the Arsacid era, and were actively manipulated and augmented by the Sasanian dynasty. These ‘Avestan’ sites of memory emerged at locales with no previous Achaemenid monumental construction, but did benefit from beautiful and dramatic natural features. In late antiquity these natural features, usually mountains or lakes, took on the names and significance of the sacred geography of as found in the Avesta. The Sasanian dynasty in particular built grand monumental complexes as its sovereigns sought to take control of these ancient Iranian traditions.

台東区西浅草の寺町の変遷

This study uses historical maps and data to research the Buddhist temple area in Nishi-Asakusa. The temple and graveyard areas of the Edo, Meiji periods and the present day are layered on a map, and the overlapping images are analyzed. As a result of the analysis, the following findings are observed:1. According to the Gofunai-Jisha-Bikou, 90 temples existed in this area in the early 18th century.2. A comparison between the Kanei-Edo and the Meireki-Edo maps, indicates that the temple area in Nishi-Asakusa greatly expanded after the Great Fire of Meireki.3. Almost all temples were moved from Edo's central area during the Edo Castle expansion and the reconstruction following the Great Fire of Meireki.4. In the Meiji and Taisho periods, each temple area had six types of resistered holders: (a). the temple's precincts, (b). government precincts, (c). personal precincts, (d). the temple's graveyard, (e). government graveyards, and (f). personal graveyards. 5. Of 90 temples, 47 were still existent in this area in 2010.

The effect of leaf beetle herbivory on the fire behaviour of tamarisk (Tamarix ramosissima Lebed.)

The non-native tree, Tamarix spp. has invaded desert riparian ecosystems in the south-western United States. Fire hazard has increased, as typically fire-resistant native vegetation is replaced by Tamarix. The tamarisk leaf beetle, Diorhabda carinulata Desbrochers, introduced for biological control, may affect fire behaviour by converting hydrated live Tamarix leaves and twigs into desiccated and dead fuels. This potentially increases fire hazard in the short term before native vegetation can be re-established. This study investigates how fire behaviour is altered in Tamarix fuels desiccated by Diorhabda herbivory at a Great Basin site, and by herbivory simulated by foliar herbicide at a Mojave Desert site. It also evaluates the influence of litter depth on fire intensity. Fire behaviour was measured with a fire intensity index that integrates temperature and duration (degree-minutes above 70°C), and with maximum temperature, duration, flame lengths, rates of spread and vegetation removal. Maximum temperature, flame length and rate of spread were enhanced by foliar desiccation of Tamarix at both sites. At only the Mojave site, there was a trend for desiccated trees to burn with greater fire intensity. At both sites, fire behaviour parameters were influenced to a greater degree by litter depth, vegetation density and drier and windier conditions than by foliar desiccation.

Visual Stimulation Reverses the Directional Preference of Direction-Selective Retinal Ganglion Cells

Direction selectivity in the retina is mediated by direction-selective ganglion cells. These cells are part of a circuit in which they are asymmetrically wired to inhibitory neurons. Thus, they respond strongly to an image moving in the preferred direction and weakly to an image moving in the opposite (null) direction. Here, we demonstrate that adaptation with short visual stimulation of a direction-selective ganglion cell using drifting gratings can reverse this cell's directional preference by 180°. This reversal is robust, long lasting, and independent of the animal's age. Our findings indicate that, even within circuits that are hardwired, the computation of direction can be altered by dynamic circuit mechanisms that are guided by visual stimulation.

Mortgage Credit (Loans and Bonds) Bill 2012

The Danish mortgage banking model was created in 1797 with the Kreditkassen following the 1795 Great Fire in Copenhagen which destroyed a large proportion of the city and left many homeless and created an instant and wide-ranging demand for housing. In order to meet this demand a pooling system was designed to obtain the necessary level of capital at a reasonable rate. Though bubbles were not entirely prevented throughout the history of the Danish system it is extremely robust and has acted as a moderating influence on the housing market in Denmark. The aim of this process is to provide capital to allow the housing and banking markets to mend. The Irish banking sector continues to mend its balance-sheets. That places a priority on banks having large capital backstops and limiting lending to the wider economy. The continued concerns about existing mortgage arrears and the recession-reduced household disposable incomes available to serve mortgages that are currently being serviced weighs heavily on the banks with respect to their lending decisions.

Review: Cities at War in Early Modern Europe, by Martha D. Pollak

Martha D. Pollak. Cities at War in Early Modern Europe . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 370 pp., 223 b/w illus. $95, ISBN 9780521113441. The cities in Martha Pollak’s new book are not really at war. They are preparing for war and commemorating war, but the actual warfare is left out of the picture. Though most of the cities she discusses experienced one or more sieges, the military operations themselves are not the focus of her study. Likewise, Pollak does not examine fortifications as such, but rather their multifarious effect on the conception and representation of the city—what she calls “military urbanism”: “an international style of urban design characterized by uniformity, geometrical clarity, architectural economy, and unadorned monumentality” (i). The ambitious aim of Cities at War in Early Modern Europe is to demonstrate that the military component was of central importance in the history of urbanism between 1550 and 1700. Of course, the gripping conjunction between cities and war has been explored before; a fine example is La ville et la guerre , edited by Antoine Picon, oddly never cited by Pollak.1 But overall historians of urban design have hitherto downplayed military considerations. A notable exception is Enrico Guidoni and Angela Marino’s two-volume Storia dell’urbanistica , to which Pollak is evidently indebted.2 Pollak’s subject matter—urban design and military culture—remains that of her earlier book, Turin, 1564–1680 (1991), but she now expands her survey to the whole of Europe, and offers not a chronological narrative but a thematically organized study.3 She splendidly succeeds in rectifying the familiar picture by showing how well-known manifestations of baroque city planning were generated by military urbanism. The pan-European approach is particularly praiseworthy, for although war was the most international of phenomena, most modern studies of military architecture and urbanism remain confined within present-day national frontiers. Pollak’s comparative survey ranges from Valletta to Stockholm and from Naples to London. Her attention goes mainly to the leading and …

Robert Hooke, 1635-1703.

Robert Hooke was a polymath whose expertise during the 17th century spanned many different scientific areas. As a schoolboy on the Isle of Wight he was obsessed with the possibility of human flight and later became equally absorbed in cosmology and planetary motion. His skills as an artist were put to good use both as an architect following the Great Fire of London and before that in Micrographia. Although that book is best known for demonstrating the power of Hooke's microscope, Micrographia describes distant planetary bodies, the wave theory of light, the organic origin of fossils, and various other philosophical and scientific interests of its author The following thumbnail sketches of Hooke reveal him to be a man of enormous energy and imagination whose ideas were often pirated or under-rated.

Enhancing Resilience of London by Learning from Experiences

The concept of resilience was introduced at the beginning of the 70s to indicate the capability of natural systems to absorb perturbations, preserving their structure and keeping the system functioning. The paper considers London as an example to a resilient city by focusing on some remarkable disasters in the history of London, such as the Great Fire of 1666, the air raids during the World War 2, 18 December 1987 Kings Cross Fire, terrorist attack to tube network on the 7 th of July 2005, 1928 flooding and 1953 storm surge. The paper starts by giving short descriptions of these disasters and continues by discussing the lessons learned. In this paper, the concept of resilience has been studied in three phases: prepare for, respond to and recover from a disaster. Besides, actions that have to be taken according to these three phases are going to be explored in detail. In conclusion, the notable effects of the mentioned disasters on the structural and non-structural tools for disaster prevention have been revealed by considering resilience of London.

The City, The River, The Bridge: Before and After the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse (review)

Reviewed by: The City, The River, The Bridge: Before and After the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse John K. Brown (bio) The City, The River, The Bridge: Before and After the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse. Edited by Patrick Nunnally. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Pp. xvi+183. $22.95. On 1 August 2007, an eight-lane highway bridge at Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River. With thirteen dead, the immediate human cost was light compared to what could have been. Other costs raised the tally of losses over time: a city disrupted for fourteen months until a replacement span opened, overall losses placed at $300 million, and an incalculable blow to public confidence in the infrastructures that sustain modern life. The Interstate 35 bridge had provided an essential corridor for the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. Fifteen months after the collapse, the university held a symposium where its faculty drew on their diverse fields and direct experiences to reflect on the event and its significance. From that conference comes this edited collection of nine essays. Such a genesis seldom produces a book of real stature, and this example proves the rule. Some contributors offer notable insights, but too often the essays wander into ponderous academic mush or pleasant diversions. Three chapters provide the real strength here. An essay by two civil engineers describes their forensic engineering that uncovered the proximate cause of the collapse. Roberto Ballarini and Minmao Liao pinpoint three causes: a mistake in the original 1967 design resulted in gusset plates (used to connect structural members) that were half the thickness of the Federal Highway Association standard of that era; over its service life, the bridge's roadway deck received an additional two-inch skin of concrete, raising the loadings on its structural members by 30 percent; just before its collapse, repair crews parked a temporary load of heavy construction materials on the span—ironically, enough for a repair project, albeit one unconnected to its basic design flaw. Presented as engineering analysis, this is really a story about change over time. Had historians authored the chapter, however, they surely would have tried to answer a question unaddressed here: why did the 1967 designers and builders fail to follow the codes of their day, ordering half-inch steel for the gusset plates instead of one-inch? Another strong chapter, by Patrick Nunnally, examines the processes and politics involved in designing and building the replacement span. Beyond the basic facts, Nunnally explores the interests that spoke out for a design improvement in the new crossing, for a chance to escape history and make a new, grand entrance for the city. They lost, although the new bridge has a lean grace that has met with general approval. In keeping with his own training as a planner, Nunnally also explores why the collapse and the politics of its aftermath did not allow for any substantive conversations [End Page 737] about new approaches to regional transport needs. Put simply, why did the private automobile again triumph, again at taxpayer expense? In this interesting exploration, I wished Nunnally had also drawn on history; Christine Meisner Rosen explored similar issues in The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America (1986). The other well-built chapter is the only one by a historian. John Anfinson looks at two earlier and pivotal episodes when Minneapolis collided with its own river. His essay offers some perspective on remembering and forgetting events both pivotal and passing. In the Gilded Age, Minneapolis became a major center for flour milling, thanks to the Saint Anthony Falls at the city's center. But in 1869, a new miller tried to get into the business by building a tunnel under the river, diverting a portion of the water to a less-crowded site downstream. Instead the tunnel collapsed, drawing into its bed nearly the entire flow of the Mississippi. This disaster threatened the rationale for the city itself, and the problem continued, more or less, until the Army Corps of Engineers built a solution across the river in 1876. Anfinson also explores Minneapolis's tangled efforts to use the Mississippi both to derive safe drinking water...

Ambition, and: Homage to Sebastian Stenzel

Ambition, and: Homage to Sebastian Stenzel Bruce Bond (bio) Ambition By the time I could walk, I was lordamong the infant lizards of my yard,though he, however tiny, was no less,more strong than I in solitude and silence,tough as a fugitive, swift as a broom.Not to say I did not frighten himthe way the cold in a father's voicemight frighten me, or worse, a father's absence.Or a lizard for that matter, that wetblister of the eye with me inside it.A child of power I was powerlessto resist, and as I reached and missed,his tail leapt off, the sudden self abandoned,flailing in horror the moment it was born. Homage to Sebastian Stenzel After the cedar died in the great fire,it stood for eighty years. A testamentto what the long neglected can endureif the roots go deep, the heartwood dense,grain woven, limbs upholding nothinglike a nervous system of the sky. No need to clear the lion's share of damage,the land the blaze blackened for a season,though naturally they razed the crumpled home. [End Page 60] What the fire began, men completed,and there were those who were buried hereand there, and those who never reappeared. What remained was the flame of sootthat climbed the tower, our useless miracle,guardian of those who stood in its shadowsand suffered without record, passing throughthe stories and nightmares of a fewfriends, neighbors, until they too passed on. Nights, the long and stubborn musculatureswung its axe in the wind, laying lowa silence in the branches, and in the starsthat slept there, that burned for eighty years.It took a luthier to bring them down,to see in the tone-wood a slow growth the winters made stiff and tight, idealin its resistance and yield, its open voice.So yes, he destroyed it, quarter sawn sothe monument might fall again, and again,over and over as song in the startledbraces of the instrument. Or so he hoped. It takes a little faith to flex the finalcut, to tap it listening for some pitchto draw breath in the unspoken, to sayI am out there somewhere, as music isin the reticence of things. It takesan ember's patience to plane the wood just so, to fit it over the casket, over the memoryof one note dying into the next,into some solitary conversation,the still bodies of those who listen, thosewho, for the moment they are listening,stand in the fire, made tall, and have no name. [End Page 61] Bruce Bond Bruce Bond's most recent and forthcoming collections of poetry include Choir of the Wells (Etruscan P), The Visible (LSU P), Peal (Etruscan P), and Blind Rain (LSU P). Presently he is Regents Professor of English at the University of North Texas and poetry editor for American Literary Review. Copyright © 2012 University of Nebraska Press

Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz

Woman Lawyer tells the story of Clara Foltz, who in 1878 became the first female lawyer in California. Today her legacy is memorialized in the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles. The courthouse recognizes Foltz’s efforts to establish the office of the public defender. Barbara Babcock is eager to tell Foltz’s story, and the details come tumbling out. Babcock is a leader among legal historians of women. Her Women’s Legal History Biography Project at Stanford Law School produces publicly available biographies of early women lawyers. Babcock is at her best in Woman Lawyer when she integrates these biographical stories to contextualize Foltz’s experience. Babcock briefly introduces many of these famous first women, giving just enough information to whet the appetite. Babcock’s focus is the personal story of Clara Foltz. The first four chapters of the book present the details of Foltz’s life in rough chronological order. Foltz married early at the age of fifteen but was soon abandoned by her ne’er-do-well husband. As a single mother with five children to raise, she came to law as a way to support her family. The book recounts Foltz’s challenges to the entrenched male legal establishment, including her denial of valuable apprenticeships, exclusion from moot court clubs, and the lawsuit she filed to gain admission to the new Hastings College of Law. Her experiences are intertwined with glimpses into the history of California, from its constitutional convention driven by anti-Chinese sentiment to the economic boom times and depressions caused by gold, real estate, and the great fire.

Coffee Culture in Dublin: A Brief History

Coffee Culture in Dublin: A Brief History

Development of Out-Wall External Thermal Insulation System Based on Rock-Wool

The outer-wall thermal insulation system has been wide used in civil engineering as an effective energy-saving measure. At present, the organic flammable thermal insulation materials such as EPS and XPS are used in outer-wall thermal insulation system in China, which leads to great fire damage probably. The rock-wool is described in detail on its merits such as good thermal insulation performance, good sound insulation performance, light weight, low thermal conductivity coefficient, incombustibility, innocuity and stable chemical capability. Two popular outer-wall external thermal insulation systems are introduced. The construction sequence of the outer-wall external thermal insulation system with rock-wool slabs, mortar and thin layer plastering technology is described.

Florence and the Great Fire: New Sources on English Commerce in the Late Sixteenth Century

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments I am deeply indebted to David Ibbetson for his invaluable help and guidance. I wish also to thank the Maitland Fund of the University of Cambridge for the generous financial assistance for this preliminary research.

The first urban plan of Uzice from 1863.

Urban plan for Uzice from 1863. started urban reforming of settlement. Historical events in 1862. set the basis: great fire and emigration of Turks from the city which reduced number from 5700 to 2490 inhabitants. At the same time, financial capacity of population weakened and that affected to dynamics of reconstruction. Sketch of current state from 1863. represents first geodetic record of the town. It provides important information about town state during Turkish occupation. On sketch of current state after the fire are seen unequal width winding streets, blocks with irregular borders, streams flowing freely through town, and, in the town center, a large cemetery which divides the town and prevents further development. According to the sketch was made the First regulation proposal on May 1863. (eng. Emanuel Shefel) which included identical surface as area destroyed in the fire. With this plan cemetery located in center was abolished, regulation of river Djetinja and steam Uremovac was planned, formed two blocks at expense of river regulation, street routes were straightened, street axle fractures were planned only in areas of intersections, block boundaries realigned, blocks got proper geometry, and around the church and district office was formed a town market from which poured out the main street - carsija. Problems of this proposalwere that it envisaged small number of town markets, in relation to economic importance of the town and inappropriate main street solution. In order to help in rewriting the plan in the town were sent engineers Josip Klinar (from Cacak) and Joseph Veseli (from Loznica). Together with E. Sefel they have made Second plan proposal: thay have expanded plan intervention to north (Military Circle), to west (stream Kostica), on cemetary space were formed two blocks and Knez Milos Market, on west side the block where was madrassa was reduced and school building was set on the regulatory line and thereby was formed Sveti Sava Market, Old market retained all features from previous proposal, Main Street has changed its route and in the part just before the Old Market was connected with the street that leads to Lipa, two parallel roads of same rank spreading from east to west and north to south were formed, river Djetinja and steam Uremovac channels were regulated, and formed Military circle. Town graphic presentation was changed so that on the drawing all blocks have written side length, and some streets even width. This proposal was endorsed in 1871. and remained in force until 1891. The work was made based on stored archival material and written sources.

Olomouc - Possibilities of Geovisualization of the Historical City

Olomouc, nowadays a city with 100,000 inhabitants, has always been considered as one of the most prominent Czech cities. It is a social and economical centre, which history started just about the 11th century. The present appearance of the city has its roots in the 18th century, when the city was almost razed to the ground after the Thirty years’ war and a great fire in 1709. After that, the city was rebuilt to a baroque military fortress against Prussia army. At the beginning of the 20th century the majority of the fortress was demolished. Character of the town is dominated by the large number of churches, burgher’s houses and other architecturally significant buildings, like a Holy Trinity Column, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Aim of this project was to state the most suitable methods of visualization of spatial-temporal change in historical build-up area from the tourist’s point of view, and to design and evaluate possibilities of spatial data acquisition. There are many methods of 2D and 3D visualization which are suitable for depiction of historical and contemporary situation. In the article four approaches are discussed comparison of historical and recent pictures or photos, overlaying historical maps over the orthophoto, enhanced visualization of historical map in large scale using the third dimension and photorealistic 3D models of the same area in different ages. All mentioned methods were geolocalizated using the Google Earth environment and multimedia features were added to enhance the impression of perception. Possibilities of visualization, which were outlined above, were realized on a case study of the Olomouc city. As a source of historical data were used rapport plans of the bastion fortress from the 17th century. The accuracy of historical maps was confirmed by cartometric methods with use of the MapAnalyst software. Registration of the spatial-temporal changes information has a great potential in urban planning or realization of reconstruction and particularly in the propagation of the region and increasing the knowledge of citizens about the history of Olomouc.

Concepts of Fire Safety Provisions of Means of Escape andEvacuation Safety Plan in High-Rise Building

The measures on safety of buildings in case of a fire have been stipulated almost as specification document in the building codes for a long time. The standards on fire safety were first prepared to prevent urban great fire, later to alleviate human losses in fire of large-scale building. The standards on fire safety in foreign countries, especially regulations on safe evacuation are outlined, and the concepts of building planning especially for the purpose of securing safe evacuation in high-rise buildings are introduced.

The Architectural Expression of Primitive Christianity: William Beveridge and the Temple of Solomon

On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a resurgent religious identity in church and state was informed by identifying the English nation with the biblical Israel, and the worship and buildings of the Church of England with those of the Temple in Jerusalem. The dedication of the Church of St Peter, Cornhill (rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 and designed by Christopher Wren) in 1681 by the Revd William Beveridge was an expression of the Church of England's confidence in its identity with the ‘primitive Church,’ and as the Church of a chosen and favoured people.

OTTOMAN URBAN PRIVACY IN LIGHT OF DISASTER RECOVERY

AbstractThis article examines the relationship between state and society in the Ottoman Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries by examining concepts and practices of privacy. Fatwas of Ottoman jurists reveal certain principles ordering the division of urban areas into public and private spaces. The article explores their application during the rebuilding of Damascus after its devastation by an earthquake in 1759. Archival sources disclose the priorities that guided the state in reconstructing a ruined provincial capital: religious values; a concern for the inhabitants’ well-being; and, rather prominently, an intent to maintain a dichotomy between public and private. In this the Ottomans were different from their contemporary European counterparts, who often took advantage of major disasters to reshape relations between rulers and subjects. This divergence is demonstrated in this article by comparing post-1759 Damascus with London after the Great Fire of 1666 and Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake.