One Great George Street : the headquarters building of the Institution of Civil Engineers PDF
Preview One Great George Street : the headquarters building of the Institution of Civil Engineers
ONE GREAT GEORGE STREET ONE GREAT GEORGE STREET T HE HEADQUARTERS BUILDING OF THE I C E NSTITUTION OF IVIL NGINEERS Malcolm Dunkeld Whittles Publishing Published by Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath, Caithness, KW6 6EG, Scotland, UK www.whittlespublishing.com © 2013 Malcom Dunkeld All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publishers. ISBN 978-184995-090-9 Printed and bound by Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport, Hants PO13 0FW To Gillian and Iain – the two people I love most in the world And to Anton Obholzer, a muse and friend of humanity vi Contents Preface and Acknowledgements ix List of illustrations xii List of tables xv 1 Introduction 1 2 Appointment of the Architect 17 3 Choosing the Builder 42 4 The Technology of the Building 65 5 The Appearance of the Building 100 6 Grand Interior 124 7 Loose Ends 171 8 Conclusion 176 Bibliography 183 Photography credits 197 Index 199 vii viii Preface and Acknowledgements In his formative book The Rise of Professional Society (first published in 1989), the social historian Harold Perkin documents the role specialised expertise had – in the form of the professions – in fashioning British society over the past century. He claims that the conditions for professionalism developed in Britain in the late 19th century with the rise of an urban middle class, which provided an expanding market for various services, and continued apace in the 20th century with the appearance of the Welfare State and its need for managers and experts of various kinds. Perkin identifies such professionals as having received a high standard of education – in a polytechnic or university – and whose working activities are controlled, or at least influenced, by professional associations. Currently there are over 450 such professional associations in the UK, including accountants, lawyers, doctors, civil servants, managers, engineers, surveyors, and architects. The role of professional associations in society has attracted the interest of both historians and economists. An extensive literature has developed that attempts to assess whether professional institutions are a benefit to society (Perkin claims the professional ideal embraces equality of opportunity and treatment in raising every citizen to the minimum accepted standard and providing social status), or whether they hamper economic development by granting monopoly powers to certain groups in the provision of labour services. Part of this discussion also addresses the problem of definition: what is a ‘profession’? Attempts at differentiating the professions are based on the belief that there is an essential quality or qualities which distinguish the professions from other occupations or trades, and which provides a basis for a distinct body of theory and alternative form of analysis. Those engaged in defining a profession tend to adopt one of two approaches. The first is an ‘attributes’ approach, where certain key characteristics are identified (for example, specialised skill acquired by intellectual and practical training; high degree of detachment and integrity required; the service involves direct, personal and fiduciary relations with the client; the practitioners are organised in bodies which, with or without State intervention, are concerned to provide ix
The list of books you might like
