<div><div><p>From white coats to Bunsen burners, the laboratory is a controlled space of experimentation, research, and invention. But how have the desired functions of the laboratory influenced the way that the laboratory was constructed, laid out, equipped, and operated? And how have developments in chemical practice or theory changed the laboratory and the way it is used? By examining the history of the laboratory this book offers a novel approach to the history of chemistry, which shows how the development of the laboratory also helped to shape modern chemistry. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>By acting as consumers of leading-edge technology, chemists have driven innovation in laboratory design and the provision of utilities and equipment. For example, the introduction of coal gas into Bunsen’s laboratory led to the development of the Bunsen burner, which in turn allowed the development of atomic spectroscopy. Is the construction of new laboratories—and the provision of new utilities and equipment—an important element in the development of these novel areas of chemistry? Peter J. T. Morris tackles these questions by looking at a series of shifts in laboratory design: from furnace-centered examples that survived until the late eighteenth century, to the classical laboratory created in Germany (and London) in the mid-nineteenth century, to the rise of industrial research laboratory in the late nineteenth century, and finally the creation of the modern laboratory at the end of the twentieth.</p><p></p></div></div><p></p><p></p><p></p>