ABSTRACT

Producing Non-Simultaneity discusses how the processes of modernisation, driven by globalisation and market forces, change the political, economic and technological conditions under which architecture is realised.

The book looks beyond the rhetoric of revolutionary innovation, often put forward by architects and engineers. It shows how technological change during the last 200 years was only possible because traditional skills and older materials persisted. The volume argues that building sites have long been showcases of non-simultaneities.

Shedding light on construction of the past and exploring what may impact construction in the future, this book would be a valuable addition for students, researchers and academics in architecture, architectural history and theory.

part I|61 pages

Across borders, beyond epochs

chapter 3|26 pages

Siting construction

Agency, reflexivity and temporality at the glocal construction site

part II|48 pages

The persistence of bricolage

chapter 4|18 pages

Steel as medium

Constructing WGC, a tallish building in postwar Sweden

chapter 5|12 pages

Between technological effectiveness and artisanal inventiveness

Concreting Torres Blancas

chapter 6|16 pages

Constructing Brutalism

In situ knowledge and skill on London’s South Bank

part III|48 pages

Intermediaries

chapter 7|25 pages

General contractors on site

Contractors’ discourses on their position and organization, Belgium 1874–1964

chapter 8|21 pages

Between bourgeois traditionalism and extreme environmental conditions

Alpenvereinshütten and their construction sites in the high mountains

part IV|70 pages

Hand and head: Construction and the imaginary

chapter 9|24 pages

Contradictions between artisan and wage labour production

Non-simultaneity in the building of Somers Town from the end of the eighteenth century

chapter 10|17 pages

Mixing time

Ancient-modern intersections along the western Anatolian railways 1

chapter 11|27 pages

Cathedrals, pyramids and Hitler’s highways

The construction site of the German Autobahn under National Socialism (1933–1942)