Peter Rice

The long-awaited reissue of the autobiography of Peter Rice, one of the main structural engineers behind the Sydney Opera House, the Pompidou Centre, the Menil Collection and Lloyds of London.I am an engineer. Often people will call me an architect engineer as a compliment. It is meant to signify a quality of engineer who is more imaginative and design-orientated than a normal engineer... To call an engineer an architect engineer because he comes up with unusual or original solutions is essentially to misunderstand the role of the engineer in society.An Engineer Imagines is a rare look into the professional creativity and philosophy of Peter Rice, who was widely acclaimed as the greatest structural engineer of his generation. He was a man who, in Renzo Pianos words, could design structures like a pianist who can play with his eyes shut. Working with many of the worlds greatest architects on buildings that became icons of contemporary architecture, he brought a uniquely poetic feeling to his work.Joining Ove Arup & Partners in 1956, Rice had heard that it was a place where an oddball could fit in. Taking on Arups theory of Total Design to heart, Rice writes about the role of the engineer in society, and how he himself applied his creativity to various projects. He admits he became an engineer by accident, tentatively feeling his way through a career without a natural instinct. But as he takes you through each of his projects, one-by-one, you can trace his development from graduate to veteran.Written in clear and poetic language, Rices autobiography is perfect for those who want to better understand postwar buildings, our concrete environment, or are budding students of engineering and architecture.

An Engineer imagines de Peter Rice es uno de esos libros que, a pesar de ser reconocido como un gran texto sobre ingeniería y arquitectura, se mantiene vivo sólo en la memoria de los que lo leyeron y en las estanterias de los afortunados que conservan uno de los ejemplares en ingles, considerados ya de coleccionista.Al editar la version en español, CINTER ha querido que este libro vuelva a estar de actualidad ampliando ademas el universo de lectores de esta referencia imprescindible en el mundo de la ingenieria y la arquitectura.Esta edicion (ya fue traducido al frances y al japones) trata de ser muy respetuosa con la original, y por ello ha mantenido tanto el formato como el diseño. Se han incluido las mismas imagenes y no se ha añadido nada mas a excepcion del prologo a la edicion en español. Siempre creimos que el diseño del libro original era un valor añadido que merecia ser respetado.