Introduction

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the four periods in which knowledge of the wind and mankind’s ability to exploit its beneficial aspects and protect itself from the harmful ones develops. In the first period, from the dawn of history to the Renaissance, the origins of wind knowledge were manifested through varied and disjoint contributions. In the second period, from the Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century, the new form of knowledge based on experience, science, produced substantial evolutions in the culture of the wind and its effects. In the third period, from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the foundations of the individual disciplines destined to give life to wind engineering were born and the first links between different sectors were manifested. In the fourth and last period, from the mid-twentieth century to the third millennium, the many strands of the wind culture show substantial advancements that first lead to the foundation of wind engineering and then to the enlarged view of wind science and engineering.