Building Visionaries - The Unsung Heroes by Collier, Caroline at Construction Books Direct

The pages of history are full of the names of great architects and engineers, but little is said about the people who made their visions into reality – the resourceful and ingenious builders. This is the story of the men and women who took a plan and made it part of our skyline – and our culture. Sumptuously illustrated the tale begins with the great building entrepreneurs of the nineteenth century, such as Sir Samuel Morton-Peto, who built Nelson’s Column. Sir Samuel took his workforce out to the Crimea, and built the first military railway to relieve the suffering of the British troops. Seeing this as his patriotic duty, he took no profit, and the railway undoubtedly saved far more lives than Florence Nightingale and her nurses. More recent times have also seen some amazing achievements. The story of Sir Frank Lampl’s remarkable life – surviving both Auschwitz and Stalin’s uranium mines before rising to lead one of the biggest construction companies in the world – is both inspirational and humbling. The builders who created such groundbreaking constructions as the Beijing Bird’s Nest and the Millennium Dome talk about their lives and careers and what inspires them to lead such complex and demanding projects. Despite their ability and accomplishments, most of the industry leaders featured in this wonderful new book have received little attention until now. This is the first time that such an extensive account of this remarkable profession has ever been written. One thing is certain – no reader will ever think of builders in quite the same light again.