Mr. Michael Kucher, under the direction of Drs. David Hounshell and Lawrence Duggan, is examining an engineering community and its work in one city -- Siena, Italy. He is using an ecological and hydrological perspective to frame a multi-faceted discussion of urban uses of water and their impact upon the "built" and natural environments. He is further attempting to assess the formation of an engineering community responsible for building this infrastructure, the sources of its technical knowledge, and the training of its members. This requires focussing upon the engineering community's role in design and construction of a state-of-the-art system for the supply and distribution of water during a period of rapid demographic and economic expansion. He is also examining how the technological innovations developed in this context were diffused to other cities in the region and across Europe. This study promises significant contributions to our understanding of the development of cities, large-scale technological systems, and the diffusion of technical knowledge across cultural frontiers.
