The Engineer's Aesthetics - Interrelations between Structural Engineering, Architecture and Art

Engineering structures are said to represent a specific aesthetics based on principles such as material efficiency and flow of forces. This paper wants take a closer look at this aesthetics. By the examples of steel and concrete bridges, it aims at tracing back its origins and by taking into account also examples from other disciplines it wants to reveal interrelations between structural engineering, architecture and art. Besides showing how profoundly these disciplines were influenced by what was and still is called the “engineer's aesthetics”, this paper also wants to raise the question, if and in how far current proclamations of this aesthetics seem reasonable.