Johann Wilhelm Schwedler
Encyclopedia
Johann Wilhelm Schwedler (23 June 1823, Berlin
– 9 June 1894, Berlin) was a German
civil engineer and civil servant who designed many bridges and public buildings and invented the Schwedler truss
and the Schwedler cupola
.
education, he spent the next ten years training as a surveyor
, studying for examinations in that and in road construction, studying for a year at the Berlin Academy of Construction
, and completing the examinations to be a certified building inspector and construction supervisor. One of his practical examinations was waived after he won the international competition to design a road and rail bridge across the Rhine between Cologne
and Deutz. He was then required to leave on his Wanderjahre
as a journeyman
; he did so with his new wife, the daughter of a teacher and organist in Buckow
, whom he had met through their shared love of music and become engaged to 6 years before.
Schwedler began publishing in engineering before he completed his training, beginning with Über die statischen Prinzipien der Konstruktion eiserner Dachgebinde über weite Räume und die Entwicklung der Konstruktionssysteme aus demselben (1846). His "Theorie der Brückenbalkensysteme", published in the first year of the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen (1851), had a revolutionary impact on the construction of steel bridges. But during his journeyman years he did not publish, concentrating instead on building. The City of Cologne employed him to build a stone bridge over the Sieg. He then supervised the first stage of construction of the railway between Cologne and Gießen
. In 1848, Barmen
, now part of Wuppertal
, invited him to become its superintendent of construction, but he instead with some reluctance returned to Berlin to take a post in the Division of Construction of the Prussian Ministry of Trade.
He spent the remainder of his career as a civil servant, becoming chief engineer for the Royal Prussian Railways
and during a period of rapid expansion: between 1860 and 1890 the Prussian railway system grew from less than 5,800 km of rails to more than 26,300 km, from approximately 600 stations to 4,200, and numerous rivers and valleys were bridged for both railways and roads. During that time he oversaw in some manner every major piece of construction in Prussia and subsequently the German Empire. In 1868 he was promoted to Geheimer Baurat and became the highest ranking construction employee in the Prussian Civil Service. He also returned to publishing, developing with Friedrich August von Pauli, Johann Caspar Harkort, and Heinrich Gottfried Gerber a complete theory and praxis of steel construction; his Theorie der Brückenbalken-Systeme, volume 1 (1862) and Resultate über die Konstruktion der eisernen Brücken (1865) were particularly influential. Shortly after his return to Berlin, he became an instructor at the Academy of Construction, and after 1864 he was an examiner there; his teaching greatly improved the training in the field. He was on the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen for many years.
Schwedler had 3 daughters and a son; however, his youngest daughter and his son died in 1863 and 1864, and his wife in 1867 after a long decline. He remarried, but his second wife died in 1892. In 1891, he had had to retire because of poor health; 3,500 fellow engineers signed a farewell testament praising his accomplishments. He died in 1894 after being housebound for several years.
; and a simple solution to the problem of raising the cast iron monument on the Kreuzberg hill in Berlin while turning it 21°.
(1864), for which he won a gold medal at the 1867 Paris International Exposition. One of the last remaining examples is the bridge carrying the Nagold Valley Railway
over the Nagold in Unterreichenbach
.
, then known as the Schlesischer Bahnhof (1866); the last surviving example is probably the train sheds of the main station in Frankfurt am Main
(1885-87).
(1874) survives, and the only deterrent to their use today is the cost of labour. He designed the cupolas on Berlin's New Synagogue (1863) and the Sedan Panorama at Alexanderplatz Station.
was named for him in 1898; the Schwedlerbrücke, a pedestrian bridge across the railway in the Ostend neighbourhood of Frankfurt
, and the Schwedlerstraße leading to it are also named for him.
He was also awarded the following honours in his lifetime:
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
– 9 June 1894, Berlin) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
civil engineer and civil servant who designed many bridges and public buildings and invented the Schwedler truss
Truss
In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. External forces and reactions to those forces are considered to act only at the nodes and result in...
and the Schwedler cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
.
Life and career
Schwedler was the son of a cabinetmaker who died when he was still in school; his brother, already a construction supervisor, made it possible for him to finish his education at the City Trade School in 1842. After a further required examination in Latin to complete the equivalent of a lower-level GymnasiumGymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
education, he spent the next ten years training as a surveyor
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
, studying for examinations in that and in road construction, studying for a year at the Berlin Academy of Construction
Bauakademie
The Bauakademie in Berlin, Germany, built between 1832 and 1836, is considered one of the forerunners of modern architecture due to its theretofore uncommon use of red brick and the relatively streamlined facade of the building.Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the Bauakademie was built near...
, and completing the examinations to be a certified building inspector and construction supervisor. One of his practical examinations was waived after he won the international competition to design a road and rail bridge across the Rhine between Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and Deutz. He was then required to leave on his Wanderjahre
Journeyman years
The journeyman years refer to the tradition of setting out on a journey for several years after completing apprenticeship as a craftsman. The tradition dates back to medieval times and is still alive in German-speaking countries...
as a journeyman
Journeyman
A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....
; he did so with his new wife, the daughter of a teacher and organist in Buckow
Buckow (Berlin)
Buckow is a locality within the Berlin borough of Neukölln.-History:The village was founded in 1373 by German settlers probably at the place of an earlier Wends' village of the name Buk spelled along with its patronymic suffix -ow...
, whom he had met through their shared love of music and become engaged to 6 years before.
Schwedler began publishing in engineering before he completed his training, beginning with Über die statischen Prinzipien der Konstruktion eiserner Dachgebinde über weite Räume und die Entwicklung der Konstruktionssysteme aus demselben (1846). His "Theorie der Brückenbalkensysteme", published in the first year of the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen (1851), had a revolutionary impact on the construction of steel bridges. But during his journeyman years he did not publish, concentrating instead on building. The City of Cologne employed him to build a stone bridge over the Sieg. He then supervised the first stage of construction of the railway between Cologne and Gießen
Gießen
Gießen, also spelt Giessen is a town in the German federal state of Hesse, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative region of Gießen...
. In 1848, Barmen
Barmen
Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which in 1929 with four other towns was merged with the city of Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. Barmen was the birth-place of Friedrich Engels and together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the...
, now part of Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
, invited him to become its superintendent of construction, but he instead with some reluctance returned to Berlin to take a post in the Division of Construction of the Prussian Ministry of Trade.
He spent the remainder of his career as a civil servant, becoming chief engineer for the Royal Prussian Railways
Prussian state railways
The term Prussian state railways encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia...
and during a period of rapid expansion: between 1860 and 1890 the Prussian railway system grew from less than 5,800 km of rails to more than 26,300 km, from approximately 600 stations to 4,200, and numerous rivers and valleys were bridged for both railways and roads. During that time he oversaw in some manner every major piece of construction in Prussia and subsequently the German Empire. In 1868 he was promoted to Geheimer Baurat and became the highest ranking construction employee in the Prussian Civil Service. He also returned to publishing, developing with Friedrich August von Pauli, Johann Caspar Harkort, and Heinrich Gottfried Gerber a complete theory and praxis of steel construction; his Theorie der Brückenbalken-Systeme, volume 1 (1862) and Resultate über die Konstruktion der eisernen Brücken (1865) were particularly influential. Shortly after his return to Berlin, he became an instructor at the Academy of Construction, and after 1864 he was an examiner there; his teaching greatly improved the training in the field. He was on the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen for many years.
Schwedler had 3 daughters and a son; however, his youngest daughter and his son died in 1863 and 1864, and his wife in 1867 after a long decline. He remarried, but his second wife died in 1892. In 1891, he had had to retire because of poor health; 3,500 fellow engineers signed a farewell testament praising his accomplishments. He died in 1894 after being housebound for several years.
Works
Among Schwedler's memorable engineering feats were the design of a swinging bridge which was still in use half a century later;; the design for the new prayer hall of the Deutscher DomDeutscher Dom
Deutscher Dom is the colloquial naming for the New Church located in Berlin on the Gendarmenmarkt across from Französischer Dom . Its parish comprised the northern part of the then new quarter of Friedrichstadt, which until then belonged to the parish of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church...
; and a simple solution to the problem of raising the cast iron monument on the Kreuzberg hill in Berlin while turning it 21°.
Schwedler truss
Schwedler invented the Schwedler truss, which was widely used worldwide in framed bridges and roofs until about 1900. It is a kind of curved chord or bowstring truss with the minimum number of diagonals, which are to bear only tension, not compression; it requires a slight downward curvature in the middle, usually replaced with extra diagonal bracing for appearance and cost saving. Schwedler himself would have preferred it to be used less on aesthetic grounds. His first use of the innovation was for the railway bridge over the Weser at Corvey, on the edge of HöxterHöxter
Höxter is the seat of the Höxter district, and a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia on the left bank of the river Weser, 52 km north of Kassel in the centre of the Weser Uplands...
(1864), for which he won a gold medal at the 1867 Paris International Exposition. One of the last remaining examples is the bridge carrying the Nagold Valley Railway
Nagold Valley Railway
The Nagold Valley Railway is a railway line in the northern part of the Black Forest in Germany which links Pforzheim with Horb am Neckar and, for most of its route, follows the valley of the River Nagold....
over the Nagold in Unterreichenbach
Unterreichenbach
Unterreichenbach is a town in the district of Calw in the northern Black Forest in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.-Geography:Unterreichenbach is in the Nagold River Valley between Calw and Pforzheim, at an altitude of between 292 und 633 metres....
.
Triple-hinged arch
Schwedler's work with bridges and calculating the stresses on them led to a further innovation, an arched structure hinged at three points to accommodate differing stresses and changes in temperature, which functionally resembles the roofs of modern stadia. The first of these, and a prototype for the platform halls of late 19th-century stations, was his train shed for the Berlin OstbahnhofBerlin Ostbahnhof
Berlin Ostbahnhof is a mainline railway station in Berlin, Germany. It is in Friedrichshain, now part of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, and has undergone several name changes in its history. It was known as Berlin Hauptbahnhof from 1987 to 1998, a name now applied to Berlin's new central station...
, then known as the Schlesischer Bahnhof (1866); the last surviving example is probably the train sheds of the main station in Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof
is the central station for Frankfurt am Main. In terms of railway traffic, it is the busiest railway station in Germany. With about 350,000 passengers per day the station is the second most frequented railway station in Germany and one of the most frequented in Europe.- Proto-history :In the late...
(1885-87).
Schwedler cupola
Called in by the Imperial Continental Gas Association in 1863 to replace a failed roof over a telescoping gas holder, Schwedler devised a workable solution but thinking further about the problem, in 1866 published an article describing a new type of iron cupola that was simpler, lighter, and as sturdy: it takes the form of an unsupported spheroidal steel vault, rather than beams, and was normally used to span distances of 25–45 m. He used Schwedler cupolas in designing 4 new gas holders for Berlin's street lighting, of which the one now known as the Fichte-BunkerFichte-Bunker
The Fichte-Bunker is a nineteenth-century gasometer in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany that was made into an air-raid shelter in World War II and subsequently was used as a shelter for the homeless and for refugees, in particular for those fleeing East Berlin for the West...
(1874) survives, and the only deterrent to their use today is the cost of labour. He designed the cupolas on Berlin's New Synagogue (1863) and the Sedan Panorama at Alexanderplatz Station.
Honours
The Schwedlerstraße in the Grunewald neighbourhood of BerlinGrunewald
Grunewald is a locality within the Berliner borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Famous for the homonymous forest, until 2001 administrative reform it was part of the former district of Wilmersdorf.-Geography:The locality is situated in the western side of the city and is separated from...
was named for him in 1898; the Schwedlerbrücke, a pedestrian bridge across the railway in the Ostend neighbourhood of Frankfurt
Ostend (Frankfurt am Main)
Ostend is a borough of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is part of the Ortsbezirk Innenstadt IV, and is subdivided into 4 Stadtbezirke. It is home to several brothels located along the Main River. The most famous of these brothels, or "Puffs," is the Eros-Center with its ubiquitous "legs" entrance...
, and the Schwedlerstraße leading to it are also named for him.
He was also awarded the following honours in his lifetime:
- Order of the Red EagleOrder of the Red EagleThe Order of the Red Eagle was an order of chivalry of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was awarded to both military personnel and civilians, to recognize valor in combat, excellence in military leadership, long and faithful service to the kingdom, or other achievements...
2nd Class with oakleaf - Gold medal for services in construction (1884)
- Commander 2nd Class of the HessianHesseHesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
Order of Philip the MagnanimousPhilip I, Landgrave of HessePhilip I of Hesse, , nicknamed der Großmütige was a leading champion of the Protestant Reformation and one of the most important of the early Protestant rulers in Germany.... - Commander of the Imperial Austrian Order of Franz JosephOrder of Franz JosephThe Imperial Austrian Franz Joseph Order was founded by the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria on December 2, 1849 on the first anniversary of his assumption of the Imperial Crown...
- Officer of the Order of the Crown of ItalyOrder of the Crown of ItalyThe Order of the Crown of Italy was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1861...
Sources
- Egbert Ritter von Hoyer, "Schwedler, Johann Wilhelm". Allgemeine Deutsche BiographieAllgemeine Deutsche BiographieAllgemeine Deutsche Biographie is one of the most important and most comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language....
Volume 54. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1908. pp. 278–282. (on de.wikisource)