Book Review - Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King

Book Review 

Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King

When it was first published in 2000, ‘Brunelleschi’s Dome’ became New York Times best seller and has received several literary awards. This is an interesting book for engineers, architects and any layman who enjoys reading narratives about history, design, innovators, and innovation.

For more than 100 years, the biggest cathedral of Florence had a huge hole in its roof, hurting the honour of the Florentines. Until he appeared, Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi was able to build the most colossal dome in Europe, which still dominates the landscape of Florence from any point of view in the city.

In this short and beautifully researched book, the author Ross King presents the genius of Filippo Brunelleschi in a lucid, engaging, and lively manner replete with history, drawings, and images. The book is essentially a work of non-fiction and describes the construction of the largest brick dome of Santa Maria Del Fiore (Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower), in Florence , Italy. The cathedral's dome is about 115 meters (372 ft) in height and 45 meters (147 ft) in width.

The first chapter in the book starts with this beguiling announcement:

“ ON AUGUST 19, 1418, a competition was announced in Florence, where the city’s magnificent new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, had been under construction for more than a century:

 Whoever desires to make any model or design for the vaulting of the main Dome of the Cathedral under construction by the Opera del Duomo — for armature, scaffold or other thing, or any lifting device pertaining to the construction and perfection of said cupola or vault — shall do so before the end of the month of September. If the model be used, he shall be entitled to a payment of 200 gold Florins.”

The author explains “ Two hundred florins was a good deal of money — more than a skilled craftsman could earn in two years of work — and so the competition attracted the attention of carpenters, masons, and cabinetmakers from all across Tuscany. They had six weeks to build their models, draw their designs, or simply make suggestions how the dome of the cathedral might be built. Their proposals were intended to solve a variety of problems, including how a temporary wooden support network could be constructed to hold the dome’s masonry in place, and how sandstone and marble blocks each weighing several tons might be raised to its top.”

These starting paragraphs certainly heightens curiosity and excitement to read this delightful book. The author describes the history of Florence, the various famous architecture, culture, politics, brinkmanship, drama, and life during the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of Renaissance period. He introduces us to Filippo Brunelleschi, a goldsmith and clock maker and how over sixteen years, Brunelleschi would dedicate himself to designing and constructing the marvelous dome. The author reveals various facets of Brunelleschi personality - intelligent, problem solver, innovator, adventurous, researcher, knowledgeable, confident, ambitious, competitive, authoritative , conceited, master of illusions, generous and yet being poor at his own personal finance management.

Brunelleschi died in 1446, kept the secrets of its construction until death and hence for over 500 years the construction of this engineering marvel has been an intriguing mystery and subject of many architectural and engineering research. The book compels readers to imagine the various challenges of 15th century and succinctly presents Brunelleschi’s designs and innovations of construction, clocks, hoists and lifting machines which were very far ahead of time.

Interestingly domes were built during Mauryan Empire and became more popular as Stupas in 3rd century as part of Buddhist architecture built by Emperor Ashoka. Domes are also commonly seen in Islamic Structures. Apparently, there are structural ( technical) and architectural differences between Stupas and Domes. While stupas are solid and semi-spherical , Domes are hollow and must withstand lateral forces and thrust all around.

Brunelleschi's major innovation was to build the Dome without centering ( wooden formwork) a supporting structure. The Dome consists of two distinct domes: one internal, more than two meters thick, with a deeper angle than the other and consisting of large arches held together by ribs and made of bricks arranged in a "herringbone" pattern. In building this dome, Brunelleschi reinvented the field of architecture. Brunelleschi is also the inventor of Perspective Drawing widely used in Architecture and Civil Engineering. 

While reading the book I found the long Italian names little taxing but after few pages you get used to it. Although the book is not technical, I suspect readers without engineering background might find few of the technical stuff little irritating but eventually will get the drift and enjoy the authors delightful narration. It will certainly benefit if you read the book and watch the various YouTube videos featuring the construction of dome, just to visualize and fathom the enormity of challenge in the Dome’s design and construction.

 If you are further curious and wish to learn the secret behind Brunelleschi’s dome, you can refer to the link below:

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/21/double-helix-masonry-researchers-uncover-secret-italian-renaissance-domes

The book is comprehensive and not to be missed. There is no doubt that towards the end readers will learn about architecture, engineering, innovation and agree with the author that “ Architectural marvels like Filippo’s dome often become sites of scientific inquiry because their unique structures and dimensions can serve as testing grounds for new theories and technologies.”

Having read the book, I yearn to visit Florence and climb up to the top of this magnificent Dome.

 

 

Book Review - 'Harsh Realities: The Making of Marico’

 

Book Review - 'Harsh Realities: The Making of Marico’

 

 

 

I enjoyed reading 'Harsh Realities: The Making of Marico’ - co-authored by Harsh Mariwala, the founder of Marico and Prof Ram Charan, the legendary management Guru.

In less than 300 pages, the book presents a fascinating tale of how Harsh Mariwala built MARICO. The author presents the various challenges of transforming a joint family- owned traditional business in commodities into an inspiring world-class FMCG organisation having multiple brands - products and services.

The book starts with the history of Mariwala joint family and provides information about their traditional oil and spice business. It narrates the family separation and how the third generation of entrepreneurs decided to come out on their own. The book predominantly focusses on the challenges of building Marico across the pre and post liberalization era along with various learnings shared by the authors.

There are excellent lessons in leadership including ideas on how to create and build an organization with Purpose - one that would not just cater to profits but more importantly care for society and all stakeholders. The importance of Leadership, Culture, Values, Transparency, Trust , Strategy, HR, Talent Management, Financial Management, Marketing, Branding, Communication, Technology, and the role of leader/ entrepreneur is succinctly emphasized.

Often strategy is about deciding where to compete and where not to compete. The author says, “Looking back, basing my business ideas on my strengths and interests, and staying away from areas where I could have been somewhat challenged, was probably what led me to success.” 

The book teaches lessons in competitive intelligence and strategy pertaining to consumer marketing , branding, packaging and price wars. Various examples of experimenting, risk taking, failing, and scaling to increase product range and capture market share are insightful.

The chapter titled ‘ Angels and Predators’ present the corporate battle between David V/s Goliath and clearly highlights the leadership conviction and some unconventional strategies to face the mighty Hindustan Lever ( now Unilever) and other competitors. The various anecdotes and real-life situation present an engrossing tale and are truly educative coupled with some incisive advice from Prof Ram Charan. Relentlessly focusing on enhancing the core business of hair and cooking oil, gradually capturing various other brands, and increasing market share in that category and later diversifying into beauty and skin care business makes for an interesting reading.

The author reiterates the role of a Leader to sustain and constantly enhance the organisation culture. Harsh tells us about Marico Leadership Competency Framework which has a strong linkage to its core values and shares about the organization’s continuous improvement through the 5E Model: Educate, Engage, Enable, Evaluate and Evolve.

I was very impressed with the chapter, ‘ Governance: Building the Board”. This chapter is not to be missed as it perspicaciously provides information about the role of Board and Corporate Governance. It provides insights on selecting professional board members, their duties, responsibilities, and active involvement in the growth of organisation and not just attending quarterly meetings and merely finding faults. What is interesting is the clear demarcation of the responsibilities between board members and management and why boards must not get involved in strategic planning.

It is always difficult and daunting for any entrepreneur to hand over the control of their business to any professional especially who is not from the entrepreneur family. However, it is very inspiring to learn how Mr. Harsh Mariwala seamlessly passed on the baton to a professional leader.

Overall, the book is enjoyable, educative, encouraging and a must read for all entrepreneurs and professionals.