Paving Our Ways: A History of the World’s Roads and Pavements

In partnership with Engineering Heritage Victoria, the RHSV is excited to present this talk by Maxwell Lay, co-author of the comprehensive history of world roads, Paving our Ways.

Paving our Ways provides a comprehensive international history of the world’s roads, running from the earliest human settlements to the present day.

It examines the earliest roads in Egypt and Mesopotamia and then moves to North Africa, Crete, Greece and Italy, before a review of pavements used by the Romans in their magnificent road system. After its empire collapsed, Roman pavements fell into ruin. The slow recovery of pavements in Europe began in France and then in England.

Asphalt and concrete slowly improved as paving materials in the second part of the 19^th century. Major advances occurred in the 20^th century with the availability of powerful machinery, pneumatic tyres and bitumen. The advances needed to bring pavements to their current development are explored, as are the tools for financing, constructing, managing and maintaining pavements. This talk will trace the human and social aspects of pavement development and use. It will outline the heritage perspective in the changing technology across the world from China and Mesopotamia, Europe, Britain, Australia and North America, stretching from biblical times to the present day.

This talk should appeal to those interested in the history of engineering and transport and the sociology of engineering.

Dr Maxwell Lay is an engineering consultant known for his international contributions to road engineering and his acclaimed international road histories. He is a member of the Order of Australia, former Executive Director of the Australian Road Research Board, and past President of the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria and the Australian Automobile Association and former director of ConnectEast. He has been awarded the Moisseif Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Peter Nicol Russell, Warren and Transport Medals of the Institution of Engineers Australia, and the Gold Medal of Roads Australia. He is the author of Handbook of Road Technology

This event will be delivered by Zoom and Zoom details will be sent to participants 24 hours prior to the event.

Image (The Strand, London, being repaved with granite setts in Victorian England) provided by Maxwell Lay.