ABSTRACT
Is this continuum with its deeply entrenched drivers only true in Europe and its former colonies? Or is it all pervading? Joseph Needham,2 who devoted much of his life to a scholarship that proved that China was often centuries ahead of the West in scientific discovery (snow crystals, six-sided symmetry of, 135 bc) and technical invention (ball bearings, second century bc; printed book, seventh century ad), was enormously impressed by the continuities in civil organisation in that country, but puzzled about why the leadership in scientific discovery and technical innovation ended in around 1500.3 Needham is not much interested in innovation in architecture, but he notes
cast iron being used in the construction of pagodas (that still stand) in the fourth century bc, the invention by Li Chhun of the segmental arch bridge in ad 610 – many of his bridges still stand – and an early flood mitigation system of dams, sluice gates and water diversion canals from the third century bc is also still operating. Continuous development is his message, and then a mysterious hiatus.
