Collapse

Eric H. Brown

Not the least of the innovations of the early nineteenth century was the adoption of structural mechanics as the basic tool in structural design. It replaced, gradually but inexorably, a centuries-old empirical, rule-of-thumb tradition which had sufficed for the mediaeval cathedrals and the Roman barrel-vaults and the temples of the Greeks, just as the rule-of-thumb tradition itself had replaced the instinctive, hereditary or imitative techniques whereby thrushes built nests, beavers built dams and men constructed igloos.

Fonte: Brown, E. H. 1975. Collapse. Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 48: 247-71.