Changing Role of the Civil Engineer in Society

FORUM

Changing Role of the Civil Engineer in Society Robert A. Rubin Partner, Postner & Rubin, New York, NY 10004.

Bettina Quintas Deputy General Counsel, New York City Transit Authority, New York, NY.

Deborah Roth Associate, Postner & Rubin, New York, NY 10004.

The engineer in America, the legitimate child of the epochal wedding of science to the useful arts, was the human medium through which it would work its profound social transformation. He was, as engineers themselves tirelessly boasted, a new breed of man, the link between ‘the monastery of science and the secular world of business,’ whose calling, engineering, bridged ‘the gulf between the impersonal exact sciences and the more human and personal affairs of economics and sociology.’1 Each morning Americans rush about their business, thinking much about the ticking clock and perhaps very little about the bridges they cross, the roads they travel, the height and girth of the towers that house their offices. Infrastructure and morning coffee are assumed rather than cherished. One does not pause to ponder structural theories or the technology of reinforced concrete. Rather, we fret and complain that traffic is too heavy, there are too few lanes, or the long ascent to the 60th floor will shave critical minutes off an important meeting. Even in structural tragedy, our first reaction may be sympathy or criticism for the architect rather than for the engineer behind the structure. As new technologies have emerged, the civil engineer has become transparent—his or her work acknowledged only by a small plaque or the occasional documentary.

The rise of the United States, however, is inextricably linked to the aspirations and successes of the civil engineer, and at one time the engineer was heralded as both hero and civilizer of lands stretching as far as the Pacific. Traditionally male, he became the new romantic adventurer, both a revolutionary and ethical figure, a welcome alternative to the prototypical industrialist or financier.

He was a symbol of optimism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, devising bigger, taller, and more expansive structures than ever dreamed possible. He was at once scientist, artist, and soldier of an untamed land.

In the mid-19th century, territorial growth and Manifest Destiny ushered in the golden age of technology and its ‘‘lusty issue was engineering.’’2 The first surge occurred when Congress authorized western expansion through the construction of the transcontinental railroad in 1866. Several decades later, U.S. involvement in the construction of the Panama Canal allowed American engineers to participate in perhaps one of the greatest feats of engineering in modern times. Science truly merged with art, however, when John Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883. A quintessential American immigrant, Roebling’s dream of structural strength and elegance was realized in a bridge that in his own words ‘‘...will be ranked as national monuments,’’ and

‘‘...will forever testify to the energy, enterprise, and wealth of that community which shall secure its erection.’’3 In the cities, towers and bridges soared to new heights with the advent of cheap, readily available steel and reinforced concrete.

In the spirit of the French architectural theorist, Viollet-le-Duc, engineers like Louis Sullivan4 experimented with ideas of structural form, where both technology and structural art played a dual role in the appearance of buildings. How a building was structured, rather than how it was decorated, became the central design element that both Sullivan and later engineers employed in creating visually appealing works.

From a sociological standpoint, these structural forms best represented the society that created them: in an age of increasing efficiency and optimism they became technological monuments.

Even as early as the 1880s, critics recognized the importance of structural art and its role as visual reference to progress and industrialization. One leading architectural critic stated that ‘‘It so happens that the work which is likely to be our most durable monument, and to convey some knowledge of us to the most remote posterity, is a work of bare utility; not a shrine, not a fortress, not a palace but a bridge. This is in itself characteristic of our time.’’5 The engineer’s success, although mirrored in great threedimensional works, was reflected in literature and popular culture as well. Between 1890 and 1920, scores of silent films were produced and millions of books were sold—all depicting the civil engineer as the new American hero. The civil engineer found himself the central character in tales like Soldiers of Fortune, The Winning of Barbara Worth, and The Iron Trail: An Alaskan Romance.6 These engineers were depicted as fearless gentlemen positioning themselves in an often harsh and barbarous landscape.

Uncorrupted and courageous, their adventures became the stuff of children’s literature as they crossed deserts and mountains in the Young Engineers series, the Tom Swift series and the Brighton Boys with the Engineers at Castigny. In addition, building sets like Erector, The Constructioneer, and Jr. Engineer flooded the market and prepared youngsters for what was becoming the fastest growing profession in modern times.7 It was an age when a child could aspire to be both an engineer and President of the United States. No one embodied this dual concept more than Herbert Hoover, whose genius diverted the Colorado River and provided both irrigation and electricity to millions of westerners via the Hoover Dam. His unfortunate presidency during the Great Depression failed to undermine his passion and status as an internationally recognized engineer, and, in his memoirs, he solidified his love for the profession when he wrote: ‘‘It is a great profession. There is a fascination of watching a figment of imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer’s high privilege.’’8 As President, Hoover could conjure up that ‘‘figment of imagination.’’ As an engineer, he could see it realized. It would be a high privilege indeed if engineers could

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both conceive of and implement their own altruistic agendas. Unfortunately, most are limited to implementing the visions of others. A civil engineer may design a dam, but he is rarely the one who decides that the flow of water needs to be stopped or redirected.

If civilization was moving forward in the early part of the 20th century, it shifted into high gear at the close of World War II. The face of the civil engineer began to pale into the frenzy of military expenditures during the Cold War and the advent of new technologies in the late 1950s. The slide rule disappeared under the shadow of an ominous new presence: the computer. Engineering schools shifted their focus from the professional art of engineering to the almost exclusive format of applied science and mathematics. Humanity diverted its attention from the wonders of steel and concrete to the first small steps on the moon, while nuclear energy and space exploration became the red-hot noble science.

Dark clouds were forming on other fronts as well. Societal changes were reflected in changes in the law. The emergence of consumerism held business and professionals increasingly responsible for individual harm. The attitude that death and personal injury, albeit regrettable, was an inevitable product of great progress, gave way to the attitude that progress must be tempered by respect and concern for these issues.

Although Judge Cardozo dealt a blow to privity in the 1916 products liability case MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., the privity barriers that once shielded architects and engineers from liability were shattered in the 1957 Inman v. Binghampton Housing Authority case. In reaction to this, statutes of repose, which would limit liability from the date of substantially completed construction, were modeled and proposed by the National Society of Professional Engineers, the Associated General Contractors of America, and the American Institute of Architects. As opposed to traditional statutes of limitation, these statutes of repose could expire before the date of injury, thus limiting liability that might occur decades after construction was completed. Although most states adopted some form of the statutes, many were revised following due process and equal protection constitutional challenges.

Likewise, there has been a gradual erosion of the economic loss rule. The economic loss rule shields designers from liability to third parties for damage that is purely economic in nature, as opposed to personal injury or property damage. An example of economic loss would be delay damages suffered by a contractor as a result of defects in an engineer’s design. In recent years, many states have eroded or even abandoned the economic loss rule. This trend continues.

The effect of these legal changes expanding the engineer’s liability has been to create a chilling atmosphere in which the civil engineer has become increasingly risk adverse and defensive, at the expense of innovation in design and construction.

Post-war attitudes and the flight from cities inevitably placed a toll on the engineer’s image as well. As architects assumed the lofty position of building design, civil engineers were handed the lucrative yet unpopular job of connecting suburbs to the cities via a vast network of highways. Lewis Mumford denounced the highway bill of 1957 and depicted the engineer as a villain who lays waste to ‘‘streams, parks and human neighborhoods in order to carry his roads to their supposed destination.’’9 Running parallel with this unhappy image was a growing distrust for technology in general. Not only was a once-hailed infrastructure deteriorating at an alarming rate, but a number of blockbuster disasters sent shockwaves through the American psyche as well. Premiering this list was the dramatic 1940 collapse of the

Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Subsequent disasters compounded disillusionment with the Teton Dam failure in 1976, the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, and the tragic Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in 1981. Forgotten were the days of adventure and innovation. Safety of both workers and citizens was pushed to the forefront, and federal agencies became increasingly involved in the review and evaluation of civil works.

As ecoactivists marched boldly into the 1960s and 1970s, the civil engineer was inadvertently transforming into a political pariah. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 introduced an entirely new era of plaintiffs and resulted in litigation such as the classic environmental case Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill 共Tellico Dam兲.10 The nearly completed construction of the little dam that couldn’t—the Tellico Dam—was halted when the Supreme Court narrowly construed the act to favor the endangered snail darter.

The ‘‘incalculable’’ risks surrounding the Tellico Dam project stand in sharp contrast to Hoover Dam, where the discord focused primarily on whether to name the dam Hoover or Boulder.

The offspring of children who had read The Young Engineer series were reading a different kind of literature. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Edward Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang heralded the necessity for environmental law and ecoterrorism, respectively. Once the symbol of growth and optimism, steel and concrete were becoming increasingly synonymous with vampiric industrialism and greed. The civil engineer thus became the unfortunate straw man under which militant conservationists could chant: ‘‘Concrete is heavy; iron is hard—but the grass will prevail.’’11 Whether a civil engineer is a hero or a villain, a movie star or an ‘‘extra,’’ depends not so much on the nature of the profession as on how society values the structures that he or she builds. The profession ultimately stands or falls in relation to policy choices made by others. Blaming civil engineers for what they create is misguided. It assumes that they can set social or political agendas, goals, and standards. It credits them with a greater degree of influence than they actually have. Civil engineers may find the means to implement agendas set by others, but they don’t dictate the direction growth or development takes. To the extent that they make possible the realization of goals that later prove to be shortsighted, they may enable poor choices, but they can’t be faulted for choosing them. If we make civil engineers responsible for the character and quality of social agendas they don’t control, we run the risk of distracting attention from the true decision makers and lose the opportunity to more carefully scrutinize the actions of those who actually do influence the choices made.

Time, however, is arguably layered rather than linear, and perhaps the American civil engineer has successfully laid a foundation by which the country and its ever-changing culture can move forward, albeit within parameters set by others. He or she, though no longer reflected in the mass entertainment of our time, is nonetheless visible in our psychic landscape. On September 11, 2001, one could stand on the Brooklyn shore and view through the very arches of a great bridge built over a century ago the tragic destruction of a more modern symbol of steel and concrete. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center collapse, leading civil engineers have been asked to perform an autopsy on the remains of the buildings by studying the original drawings and performing onsite investigations.12 Additionally, in an industry where the public perceives civil works as low tech, civil engineers assume new responsibilities that will safeguard citizens from both forces of nature and the violent acts of men. However, one does not call on the doctor only when sick, and civil engineers are faced with the dual task of

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maintaining an existing infrastructure while devising new ways to house an increasingly faster paced and demanding society. The emergence of new technologies and engineering innovations will no doubt make possible the seemingly impossible. Already, there is a flurry of debate over the proposed Millennium Tower in Hong Kong and the Gilbratar Bridge that is proposed to connect Spain and Africa. Projects of this scale are currently uncharted territory for engineers, and there will be little margin for error if it is decided that they should be built. Civil engineers, however, shouldn’t just be called upon to implement these concepts. They should be included in deciding whether, all things considered, including the state of existing technology, they should be built at all.

Before civil engineers can be praised or blamed they must be given the opportunity to join the ranks of the decision makers. If civil engineering is ever to bridge ‘‘the gulf between the impersonal exact sciences and the more human and personal affairs of economics and sociology,’’ as David Noble predicted, steps will need to be taken to liberalize the civil engineering education.

Require that civil engineers pursue a liberal education, assimilate them into the social, corporate, governmental, and academic institutions that actually set policy, and then judge their performance critically. The future of the civil engineering profession lies in integrating civil engineers into the existing power structure. The challenge ahead is ultimately more of a political and social one than a technical one. To wield more power, civil engineers must lose their innocence and increase their sophistication.

A start would be to create a more well-rounded educational program that focuses on both oral and written communications, that will foster critical thinking and analysis, that will let civil engineers speak the language of politicians, lawyers, and businessmen. Then, civil engineers will have a better chance at influencing choices that affect our physical environment. Toward that end, making a master’s degree the first professional degree for civil engineers would be a significant step forward.

Yesterday, the task of the engineer was to implement policies that bridled nature and connected us to the vast unknown. Today and tomorrow, the engineer will perhaps play his or her own pivotal role in economizing our built environment and social

space. This will require a unique vision—one that both stretches the imagination and takes into account the complexities of modern civil life. But is this not the high calling of the civil engineer?

Endnotes 1

David F. Noble, America by design: Science, technology, and the rise of corporate capitalism, 33 共1977兲. This paper is based upon a panel discussion held at the 2002 Construction Contracts Year in Review Conference. It is reproduced with permission from the editor of the ‘‘The Construction Contracts Law Report’’ where it was originally published.

2 Id. 共quoting Ralph E. Flanders, ‘‘The new age and the new man,’’ in Charles A. Beard, ed., Toward civilization, 22 共1930兲.

3 David P. Billington, The tower and the bridge: The new art of structural engineering, 75 共1985兲 共quoting from Alan Trachtenberg, Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and symbol 共1965兲.

4 Id. at 108 共stating that Louis Sullivan was largely educated on his own in respect to architecture and engineering, and joined the firm of Dankmar Adler, who was also a self-educated engineer, in 1879. In 1881 they formed the firm of Adler and Sullivan兲.

5 Billington, supra note 3 共quoting Montgomery Schuyler, ‘‘The Bridge as monument,’’ Harper’s Weekly 27, May 1883, reprinted in American architecture and other writings 164 共William H. Jordy and Ralph Coe, eds., 1964兲.

6 Cecelia Tichi, Shifting gears: Technology, literature, culture in modern America, 118 共1987兲.

7 Id. 共stating that ‘‘关b兴y 1900 there were approximately 45,000 engineers, by 1930, 230,000, a fivefold increase兲.

8 Herbert Hoover, Memoirs 共1951兲.

9 Get cite.

10 Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hiram Hill, et al., 437 U.S. 153 共1978兲.

11 Edward Abbey, The monkey wrench gang 共1975兲.

12 See, 21st ‘‘Century Skyscrapers: Engineers say materials exist to build high rises resistant to assault.’’ San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 1, 2001.

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