Robert Lavin

Robert Lavin has produced some extraordinary images for United Engineers & Constructors Inc., in the 1960's. Other artists worked on images for the company (Stanley Meltzer for instance). Lavin has a characteristic touch - very painterly but with great sensitivity towards surfaces and engineering detail. He seems to relish painting blueprints and other surfaces of graphic instruction.

each of his images is printed at 17 x 22.5 cms.
 

September 1964 and intended to illustrate the arrival of building materials on a large construction site.."Part of the skill of United Engineers is scheduling deliveries to mesh with construction."

 April 1963; during the last period of construction of a laboratory, a heavy concrete casting is put in place.

 August 1961, and a team of United's engineers fitting a Header, "integral with a steam generating system... its blunt cylindrical feet are points of entry for vertical tubes. In the foreground dangle empty eyed brackets waiting for a bigger and heavier header.." June 1961. A skilled workman fits a small piece of tubing for a process control system in a new chemical plant. Date unknown ; a machine in a strip mill that winds sheet steel into coils. It is significant that the industrial process continues while new elements are being built. July 1964, and a celebration of mechanical precision on even the most massive pieces of industrial equipment.
 
date unknown, the image shows engineers checking circuits from blueprints.