Civic engineering is a vital part of urban life, but rarely does it provide us with a glimpse at pure beauty. “Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whose bicentenary we celebrate this month, changed the face of Britain. A restless polymath, he imbued the kingdom with gloriously ambitious railways, sensational steamships, revolutionary bridges and a new industrial-era architecture… His monuments are all around us – and they are as dramatic and useful today as they were in their Victorian heyday.”