History of Civil Engineering (2500034) – Course 2025/26 PDF
Contents
The use and control of water as a major goal. Hydraulic works have contributed decisively to the development of cities and land use planning. Great Roman hydraulic works: water supplies, irrigation, dams, aqueducts. Irrigation systems of the Middle Ages. The legacy of Islamic hydraulics. Hydraulic works during the modern age. Channels and dams. Port works. Hydraulic works in America. Water and contemporary engineering. Foundation of the first school of engineers, 1802. Navigation canals, Suez and Panama. Hygiene, and the birth of urbanism. The urban revolution. The role of engineers in the construction of the city in the nineteenth century. Water supply and sewer. Barcelona subsoil sanitation project, 1893. Regenerationism: watering is governing. Hydrological plans, hydrographic confederations, reservoirs and diversions. Hydroelectricity. Visit and water installation work Viewing and commenting on reports on water engineering
Specific Objectives
Know the origin of the great interventions in infrastructures in the Mediterranean civilizations and in Rome. Understand the historical evolution of the scope of hydraulic works Get to know how water policy has evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries and how it has influenced the growth of the city. Awaken the skills of critical analysis of projects.
Dedication
9h Large group + 6h Medium group + 21h Self StudyThe invention of the steam engine. Its application to industries: the industrial revolution. The state of communications in the eighteenth century. The origin of road engineering. Roads and navigation channels. From railways to steam locomotives and the explosion of the railway. The railway and national construction. The late development of the railway in the Iberian Peninsula. The track width controversy. The development of the railway: concessions and concentration of companies. Trains and stations in the formation of the new city. The Cerdà project. The train becomes urban: tram, cable car and metro. The city colonizes its surroundings thanks to the railroad. The railway and electricity, signs of the new century. The subway is already possible. The end of the railway as a hegemonic mode. The destruction of the railway lines. New technologies that are revolutionizing the railway: the bullet train and the TGV The era of the railroad returns: the high speed, the metropolitan services and the intermodality for merchandize. High speed extension. Bird versus the German model. Railways and combined transport. The return of the tram. Metro, suburbs and regional services. Visit and work train station
Specific Objectives
Through the history of the railway to discover how road engineering becomes the protagonist of the direction of economic and social progress of the nineteenth century Learn how cities grow and spread thanks to the railway. Discover the episodes of confrontation between modes of transport and the search for a new balance. And see how this affects twentieth-century cities Discover the new role of the railway in city systems.
Dedication
12h Large group + 3h Medium group + 21h Self StudyUrban itinerary and work Road models and the functionalist city; the introduction of the automobile. Axes, avenues and motorways: meshes and radial models, variants and rounds Road models, traffic models and urban planning. Road specialization, segregation of functions. The urbanism of the sector and the metropolis. Urban strategies and projects. The adaptation of the city to the car. Comprehensive design of road infrastructure. Functional stripes. Paradigm of sustainable mobility and smart-city. Restrictions on the car. The city of pedestrians. Superblocks
Specific Objectives
Knowing how the introduction of the automobile profoundly alters the shape and extent of the city Know the models applied to traffic and how their influence becomes key to the growth of cities in the twentieth century. Know the taxonomy of urban roads depending on traffic. The recovery of public space from a sustainable city vision must be reflected in a new public space project.
Dedication
12h Large group + 3h Medium group + 21h Self Study