Federico Foce
Biography
Federico Foce has taken the degree in Architecture at the University of Genoa (Title of the thesis: La teoria delle volte in muratura dalla statica del Settecento all’avvento dell’elasticità, Genoa 1988), the Ph.D in “History of structural mechanics” at the University of Florence (Title of the thesis: La teoria molecolare dell’elasticità dalla fondazione ottocentesca ai nuovi sviluppi del XX secolo, Florence 1993) and since 1999 he is a researcher in Structural Mechanics at the Department of Sciences for Architecture of the University of Genoa. He has participated to research programs supported by the Italian Ministry of the scientific research and the University of Genoa and has been scientific responsible for the project Thesaurus on Construction History (XV-XX centuries) (2004-2006). He has carried out theoretical and historical studies in the mechanics of solids and structures, with particular attention to the molecular theory of elasticity and the stability of masonry vaulted systems.
As a co-founder (1998) of the Associazione Edoardo Benvenuto per la ricerca sulla Scienza e l’Arte del Costruire nel loro sviluppo storico, he has organized international conferences and promoted scientific research for the project Between Mechanics and Architecture and has edited the following books of the homonymous series with the colleagues A. Becchi, M. Corradi and O.Pedemonte: Towards a history of construction, Birkhäuser, Basel 2002; Essays on the history of mechanics, Birkhäuser, Basel 2003; Construction History. Research perspectives in Europe, Kim Williams Books, Firenze 2004.
He has written many papers appeared on national and international scientific magazines and proceedings and has published the book: Becchi A., Foce F., Degli archi e delle volte. Arte del costruire fra meccanica e stereotomia, Marsilio, Venezia 2002.
He has been a member of the scientific committee of the First International Congress on Construction History (Madrid, 20-24.01.2003), the Fourth International Conference on Arch Bridges (Barcelona, 17-19.11.2004) and the Second International Congress on Construction History (Cambridge, UK, 29 March-2 April 2006).
He teaches Statics and Structural Mechanics at the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Engineering of the Genoa University.
Bibliography
Works
Foce, Federico, La teoria molecolare dell’elasticità dalla fondazione ottocentesca ai nuovi sviluppi del XX secolo, Tesi di dottorato, Firenze 1993.
Foce, Federico, The theory of elasticity between molecular and continuum approach in the XIXth century, in Benvenuto E., Radelet-de Grave P. (eds.), Between Mechanics and Architecture, Birkhäuser, Basel 1995, pp. 301-314.
Foce, Federico, On the safety of the masonry arch. Different formulations from the history of structural mechanics , in Huerta S. (ed.), Essays in the history of theory of structures, Instituto Juan de Herrera, Madrid 2005, pp.117-142.