David Wood

In 1828, the Royal Charter of the Institution of Civil Engineers, drafted by Thomas Tredgold, defined the purpose of the Institution:
The general advancement of mechanical science, and more particularly for promoting the acquisition of that species of knowledge which constitutes the profession of a civil engineer; being the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man, as the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal trade, as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation, and docks, for internal intercourse and exchange; and in the construction of ports, harbours, moles, breakwaters, and light-houses, and in the art of navigation by artificial power, for the purposes of commerce; and in the construction and adaptation of machinery, and in the drainage of cities and towns

Interdependence encouraged the formation of settlements which became villages and then towns and cities. The benefits of scale and collaboration in provision of this infrastructure were obvious—common means of protection against predators (human or animal), common sources of clean water (no need for each household to have its own well), common strategies for disposal of waste (one man’s waste disposal can become another man’s pollution), common sources of energy, common networks of transport. The advantages of sharing skills and resources would have rapidly become apparent.

It is architecture’s freedom from the manipulations of utility that makes it a true art

US President Harry Truman said in 1948, ‘You can achieve anything so long as you don’t mind who takes the credit.’

trees grow in a way which is structurally efficient