Los puentes de piedra (o ladrillo): antaño y hogaño [Stone (or brick) bridges: yesterday and today]. Summer course (2016)

Courses

Summer course organised by Fundación Juanelo Turriano. Venue: Madrid School of Civil Engineering. Date: 12 to 15 July 2016.

Today’s society may not have stopped to think about the past, present and future impact of bridges on the history of humanity and civilisation. Bridge building has been regarded as one of the signs of a community’s concern for the stability of its settlements, the security of its communications and the control and coordination of its territory. Those were the purposes pursued with the construction of the superb Roman network of bridges, which underwent barely any change during the Middle Ages.

In the West, the value of bridges grew in the eighteenth century and onward. With the Enlightenment came both the realisation that peoples and towns needed infrastructure and demands by the bourgeoisie, in power since the Industrial Revolution, for the support for trade and human circulation required to generate economic wealth. Bridges became objects to be used and therefore living elements, as well as displays of art, power and prestige (like the Gothic cathedrals of the Lower Middle Ages, albeit on a wholly different scale). The increasingly powerful drive to build bridges provided the world with ever more varied works, although stone bridges were eclipsed by their steel and concrete cousins, with which they could no longer compete.

Nonetheless, the experience of those of us who over time have had to inspect and, on occasion, repair bridges shows that the ones made of stone (or brick, which are often overlooked) exhibit the best behaviour, the highest service life/initial investment ratio and the lowest maintenance costs: in a word, theirs are the most sustainable structures.

What role can stone bridges play in this day and age? What social and cultural value can be attributed to them? Can new masonry bridges be regarded as innovative?

Those are the questions to be addressed in this course, which aims to re-initiate a sincere and open debate, striking a balance between a necessary retrospective review and the future of a heritage that must be maintained and enhanced with cultural, social, and sustainability-minded criteria. A second, no mean aim is to contribute to an understanding of these bridges, the better to love them.

With this course, the twelfth since the series began in 2005 at the University of Granada, Fundación Juanelo Turriano continues to fulfil its primary mission: to further the knowledge of Spain’s technical and engineering heritage, particularly among the professionals and academics most directly involved in its conservation.

Programme

Course management: Francisco Javier León (UPM), José María Goicolea Ruigómez (UPM Y FJT)

Coordinator: Bernardo Revuelta Pol (FJT)