Heinz Isler: From Delft to Princeton and Beyond

In his works and thought, Heinz Isler articulated a vision of engineering in concrete thin shells that challenges professional assumptions, not only of what is possible in shell design, but of what it means to be an engineer. Isler's insistence that structures be elegant as well as efficient and economical attacked the notions that structural design was mere technical work and that beautiful works were of necessity architecture. He challenged engineering educators to encourage aesthetic imagination in engineers within the strict disciplines of economy and practicality.