Construction Matters

Construction History, Construction Heritage, Recent Construction, Historiography, Industrialization, Engineering Sciences, Building Materials, Building Actors

Construction History is still a fairly new and small but quickly evolving field. The current trends in Construction History are well reflected in the papers of the present conference. Construction History has strong roots in the historiography of the 19th century and the evolution of industrialization, but the focus of our research field has meanwhile shifted notably to include more recent and also more distant histories as well. This is reflected in these conference proceedings, where 65 out of 148 contributed papers deal with the built heritage or building actors of the 20th or 21st century. The conference also mirrors the wide spectrum of documentary and analytical approaches comprised within the discipline of Construction History. Papers dealing with the technical and functional analysis of specific buildings or building types are complemented by other studies focusing on the lives and formation of building actors, from laborers to architects and engineers, from economical aspects to social and political implications, on legal aspects and the strong ties between the history of construction and the history of engineering sciences.

The conference integrates perfectly into the daily work at the Institute for Preservation and Construction History at ETH Zurich. Its two chairs – the Chair for Building Archaeology and Construction History and the Chair for Construction Heritage and Preservation – endeavor to cover the entire field and to bridge the gaps between the different approaches, methodologies and disciplines, between various centuries as well as technologies – learning together and from each other. The proceedings of 8ICCH give a representative picture of the state of the art in the field, and will serve as a reference point for future studies.

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