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The Chamber of Engineers awards each three years the great, European important Structural Engi-neering Award which bears the name of one of the most outstanding structural engineers of our times, the Stuttgart University Professor and builder Prof. Fritz Leonhardt (1909 - 1999). With this award, the engineering arts and its creating structural engineers are to be honoured. The award is donated in cooperation with the Association of Consulting Engineers (VBI).
The Working Committee FLP, presided by Dr.-Ing. Rainer Weiske and president Dipl.-Ing. Gert Kordes has chosen
Prof.Dr.-Ing. Dr.-Ing. hc.
René Walther
Basel, Switzerland
as FLP-Award winner 2005.
René Walther, born in Basel in 1928, studied structural engineering at the ETH University of Zurich und earned this doctorate in 1957 at the Lehigh University of Bethle-hem. In the early 1960's Prof. Fritz Leonhardt appointed Dr. Walther Head of the Department for Steel and Concrete of the Otto-Graf-Institute of the Technical University of Stuttgart.
In 1964 René Walther founded the engineering firm Walther, Mory, Maier in Basel. In 1975 Walther became Professor of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
His investigations made way for today's cable-stayed bridges with very slender longitudinal supports. René Walther himself designed the first bridge of this kind crossing the Rhine at Diepoldsau spanning approx. 100 m.
Prof. Walther encouraged the acceptance of sound constructions by the authorities. Many good engineers emerged of his school.
In his publications, among others "Construire en Béton, Synthese pour architectes" he plainly illustrated structural elements and their application. - The foto shows the paper tower, emblem of the Swiss pavilion of the Expo 1992 in Sevilla: a 35 m high tower which - in order to emphasise the ephemeral character of a World Exposition - is mainly made of paper and cardboard.
(Press release)
Papertower
Cable-stayed bridge Zahltbommel, Netherlands
Bridge over the Rhône in St. Maurice, Switzerland
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