Why does the history of our built environment matter?

The great 19th-century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was voted the second greatest Briton after Churchill. This fascinating book looks at his family's connection with the equally renowned Barry family of Victorian architects and civil engineers. It shows how their shared legacy can be linked through to the construction of London's iconic Tower Bridge to the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa. As building became an increasingly technical field, in conjunction with modern stylistic and material influences from home and abroad, so these two families thrived.

Almost 70 mainly colour images illustrate the structures and people.

The author, Nick von Behr, started research on the book during a full-time Masters in the History of Technology at the University of Bath, supervised by the world's top Brunel expert. His ideas developed while working subsequently in STEM and then built environment education for the Royal Society, Cambridge Assessment, the Royal Society of Chemistry, STEM Learning, the BSI Group and the Institution of Structural Engineers.