The ICOHTEC meeting will take place in Glasgow, 2-7 August
2011, and we are looking for individuals interested in giving a paper or
serving as the chair and/or commentator for a session on the history of
technical drawing. The deadline for submitting panel proposals is
31 January 2011.
Rationale.
Drawing played a vital role in industrializing Europe. The
mechanization of society demanded workers conversant in the “visual
language” of the machine age: technical drawing. Eugene Ferguson,
Yves Deforge, Renaud D'Enfert and others have shown that spatial and
visual thinking was fundamental to the new industrial order.
We propose shifting the emphasis of scholarship from a focus on the
physical sciences and mathematics to the fundamental role of technical
drawing (including descriptive geometry) in Europe during the first half
of the 19th century. Looking at technical drawing allows one to see
inside the technological and engineering creative process as well as the
day-to-day creation of new technologies and goods, whether manufactured
or artisanal. Products expressed bourgeois tastes as well as the
interconnection of art, science, and manufacture, and technical drawing
provided the visual language that made these possible.
We are open to any and all ideas for papers on any aspect of
technical drawing in Europe during the first half of the nineteenth
century.
If you wish to participate, please contact the panel organizer,
Andrew Butrica at
[log in to unmask], as soon as possible, so that we
can meet the 31 January deadline.
Andrew J. Butrica, Ph.D.
Research Historian
Voice: (301) 656-3486
Fax: (301) 656-3486 (please call first)
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
"Il faut travailler dans notre jardin."
Voltaire, Candide.