PROFESSOR BILLINGTON
BACKGROUND

David P. Billington, Gordon Y. S. Wu Professor of Engineering at Princeton University, originated the concept of “The Art of Structural Design.” He is an eminent authority on bridge design, combining in his scholarship the worlds of art and engineering. During his tenure at Princeton he has become a lecturer of legend, teaching large-scale structural analysis and at the same time extolling the aesthetic and social values intrinsic to beneficial technology. He has written extensively about each of the engineers included in the exhibition and during nearly every year since 1970 he has spent some of his time conducting research in Switzerland and often at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich. He not only teaches about structure; he also draws connections between how we think and what we build. Professor Billington has organized several previous exhibitions at the museum. “The Art of Structural Design” is both a celebration of the Swiss engineers featured in the project and a salute to Professor Billington’s forty-five year teaching career at Princeton and his commitment to integrating visual education into the training of engineers and introducing engineering to students of all disciplines.



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