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Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Architects don't do any math - they don't know how anyway
Architects are the same as designers, they just create a concept, a look, or a form. Engineers acutalise that thing.
Architects don't do any math - they don't know how anyway
Architects are the same as designers, they just create a concept, a look, or a form. Engineers acutalise that thing.
Especially Sir Christopher...
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9. Technological Involvement
Types: Architecture, Instruments, Navigation, Cartography, Mechanical Devices, Agriculture, Medical Practice, Military Engineering, Civil Engineering, Hydraulics
The rebuilding of London is obvious, but practical, utilitarian projects dominated Wren's consciousness from childhood when at the age of 13 he invented an astronomical instrument and a pneumatic engine. A year later, now in Oxford, he presented Charles, Elector Palatine, with several mechanical instruments and devices of his own invention. Parentalia (pp. 198-9) lists the topics he presented to the Oxford Philosophical Club in the 50s, a list overwhelmingly practical and utilitarian--e.g, (I select from the list and do not repeat it all) a "goniscope" to measure angles, a "weather wheel" and a weather clock, an instrument to write double, a surveying instrument, several improvements in the art of husbandry, new engines to raise water, new ways to print, pneumatic engines, a way to reckon time, longitude, and distance made good at sea, fortification of ports, new offensive and defensive military engines, inventions in fortification, perfection of coaches. Wren later presented a number of these projects to the Royal Society. There is a problem with him; how far did he carry many of these projects? Since many of them show up several times, since they are not general Baconian talk but specific inventions or projects, and since I want to capture the whole range of his utilitarian, technological enterprises, I am listing inclusively. There is no one else in the catalog whose range of technological involvement was so broad. He can be listed validly in all but four of my categories.
He developed a micrometer, and he attached telescopic sights to astronomical instruments. He devised an adjustable aperture. By developing measuring techniques, he helped transform the telescope into an instrument of quantitative astronomy. He worked at measuring arcs to seconds, and he invented a double, hinged telescope for measuring angles of separation precisely. Likewise there was an improved microscope that allowed measurements, as well as a device to grind hyperbolic lenses (Ã la Descartes). All sorts of meteorological instruments and some surveying instruments.
Navigation, especially the determination of longitude, was a preoccupation from undergraduate days until his death. He explored all of the methods that seemed feasable at the time, including watches. He also devised a sounding device.
Cartography was a less pronounced occupation, but he did a map of the moon and a map of burned out London, and he invented surveying instruments, including a new level.
All sorts of mechanical devices--watches, windlasses to raise weights, an improved carriage, and experiments in harnessing the force of gunpowder to lift weights and bend springs.
There is enough mention of agricultural interests that I am justified in listing this--a youthful machine, horse drawn, to plant grain, a box hive for bees, a hothouse to grow tropical plants.
I am listing medicine as well. A good half at least of his interest in meteorology was medically connected, governed by the theory that there were epidemic seasons that could be identified. He also developed a method to fumigate and purify sick rooms.
In the early 60s, Charles wanted to commission Wren to build the fortifications and port works at Tangier. Wren managed to beg off, but military engineering bulks fairly large in the Oxford topics, and he was consulted on the works at Tangier.
In the standard areas of civil engineering, such as building bridges, he did not participate that I can find. He did write on methods of building under water (for moles and quays), and his novel trusses to support the span across the Sheldonian Theatre classify as civil engineering.
Wren did not do much hydraulic engineering. However, Sprat mentions improved waterworks, and Wren wrote a tract (unpublished, like nearly everything) on the improvement of navigation by joining rivers. He proposed a major diversion of the Cam to St. John's College. He was concerned (peripherally, I think) with the New River project and with the water it furnished to St. James's Palace."
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