The professional manager held ultimate responsibility for construction, while the designer's authority with respect to the client receded. on-site work done by subcontractors was managed by large general contractors who provided the supervising engineers, and did not necessarily have to adhere to the designers places (Cuff 33). This change was a direct consequence of the arrangement of work in the Industrial Revolution, where specialisation was given new dimensions and management sped up to keep pace with the quickening of material manufacturing, steam-powered machine labour, and transportation systems. It also was necessitated by the increase in the mathematical and mechanical knowledge of structures. It became difficult if not impossible for one person to understand the complicated mathematics of design and materials, and to apply this within the field of craftsmanship and building. With increasing information through new media, it was also difficult to keep abreast of current technological advances.
All of these changes were evident in the three buildings discussed above. In the case of the Eiffel Tower, the new system of bidding out design contracts -- one that harkened back to Renaissance competitions -- is clear. Eiffel was not a single man but a design firm under his direction, and his company won the contract over 100 other bidders. With Telford, Paxton, and Eiffel, fresh designs using different materials were implemented based on new principles of mathematics and production. Some of these designs, such as that of the Crystal Palace, resulted in new services including heating and ventilation (Nuttgens 245); Paxton's innovations with glass and iron were a radical departure from previous architecture (Kostoff 595) and heralded the rise of construction materials in the future (skyscrapers) rather than those of previous eras (Middleton & Watkin 359) . In each case, the site work was managed efficiently by the contractor, not by the architect. The contractor coordinated subcontracted labour in these buildings. The sites were organised with sophistication based on premanufactured materials and mechanisation of the worksite. Craft guilds vanished, replaced by contractors to improve productivity and uniformity. The designer made designs off-site and submitted them to the contractor. Architecture moved away from involvement with construction. The master builder tradition disappeared with this professionalised split.
The change to labour was in the reduction of the amount of manpower necessary given the ascendancy of the new machines and the mechanisation of all processes formerly requiring human and animal muscle. The workforce reduced although the scale of the building projects increased. Labourers were required to possess increased specialisation, and may have been guided in their work practises by the Protestant notion of the intrinsic value of work. In addition, knowledgeable people were needed to run machines. The notion of the guild dissipated, transformed now into the industrial labour union that tried to negotiate wages against entrepreneurial capitalists who built to make money. Subcontractors and contractors managed their own labourers under the overarching eye of the general contractor. The architect, who was now a pure designer, played no role in the management of craft builders or engineers.
Much of the management thought during this time influenced the way labour was organised in the factory system. A great deal of scrutiny was applied towards increasing worker motivation and productivity through incentives. The division of labour into specialised tasks was amplified. Manufacturing processes were simplified and reduced, with their unnecessary elements eliminated. Production was standardized and submitted to quality-control procedures, increased surveillance, and monitoring. This entire culture was in the service of profit.
All of these management theories, driven by a social scientific thrust, combined to lay the groundwork for twentieth-century management techniques, epitomized by Taylor's the Principles of Scientific Management, which extends beyond the time period of this investigation. They reflect the growing need in the Industrial Revolution for the creation of a professional class of managers. Many of the ideas would have been adopted by industrial contractors in their supervision of work processes, although only in an elementary form. As such the Industrial Revolution, both in its social and technological influences, prepared for later generations of project managers.
One of the fundamental testaments to the rapid amount of progress levied during the Industrial Revolution in areas of economics, labor, and construction technology is the length of time with which major structures were erected. At the beginning of the period, projects such as the Menai Straits Suspension Bridge and Iron Bridge routinely took around five...
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