photographers & civil engineering projects

[Mark Sampson]

Of course, the later work of Lewis Hine is spectacular- his photos of the construction of the Empire State Building c.1931 stand at the pinnacle of this genre.

[adrian tyler]

yes most of the major 19th-early 20th centry civil works were well documented, fourth road bridge, eiffel tower...

[bgh]

Unfortunately, from the research that I've done with dams and hydroelectric projects, much of the best photographic documentation of construction is unpublished. I've seen several sets of knock-your-socks-off 8x10 contact prints of construction documentation that are kept in some department or another of the company that built the facility. I've attached a quick and terribly inadequate scan of one of these, a hydroelectric powerhouse under construction in the late 1930s.

I'd love to talk one of my clients into letting me do some of this old-fashioned kind of photographic documentation of new construction projects.

I'd also second the recommendation to search the HABS/HAER collections--they're an incredible resource, with some darn fine photographs mixed in. Here's the search page:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/

Bruce

[Antonio Corcuera]

Adrian, I can recommend Charles Clifford's documentation of the construction of Madrid's waterworks (Canal de Isabel II). I can't remember the name of the book, but a quick google of Clifford brought this: http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/exhibi...ne_infra3.html
(btw, the rest of the page/exhibition is very interesting)

[claudiocambon]

I highly recommend the book project called I believe simply 'Courthouse' in which a lot of East Coast greats from the 70's and 80's documented courthouses I think only in the NE. It's been a long time since I have looked through it, but it was quite sizable in scope, and the work is beautiful. Not quite engineering, but it speaks to building our society nonetheless.

[Allen in Montreal]

Unfortunately...... much of the best photographic documentation of construction is unpublished.........

Bruce

I think this remains true today.

My dear friend Gordon Beck spent his life documenting Montreal, The construction of Expo 67, the Olympic site, The Metro system, the closing of factories, the demolition of historical sites, the last locomotive round houses and, over 20 years, he walked and logged every single street in the city center with binders full of negatives.
He has never published any of it!

[C. D. Keth]

There's an article in the July/August ViewCamera about one of the staff HABS photographers.