Structures (or why things don’t fall down)

J.E. Gordon’s book is a great read. Did you know that arches are so popular because they have to break in 4 places before they will fall down? Amazing factoids and insights for the lay person abound in this book. The technical details occasionally got a bit heavy.

The book comes to this wonderful conclusion:

Is it not fair to ask the technologist, not Only to provide artefacts that work, but also to provide beauty, even in the common street, and above all to provide fun? Otherwise technology will die of boredom. Let us have lots of ornament. … Since we have created a whole menagerie full of new artefacts, … , let us sit down and think what fun we can have in devising new kinds of decorations for them.

I did not expect to find an explanation of the success of Web 2.0 websites in a book on constructions. It was fun to realise that Web 2.0, like successful architecture owes much to skiamorphs, fakes and ornaments!