Alois Kieslinger

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Memorial plaque for Alois Kieslinger in the courtyard of the TU Vienna

Alois Kieslinger (born February 1, 1900 in Vienna ; † June 1, 1975 ibid) was an Austrian geologist and paleontologist specializing in applied geology and petrography . He became a professor and is seen in Austria as a “new mediator between geology and art” and as a co-founder of cultural geology .

Early life

Little is known about Kieslinger's early life. Alois Kieslinger's family came from south-west Styria from Eibiswald at the foot of the Koralm . The son of Ministerialrat Ing. Franz Kieslinger attended the Schottengymnasium in Vienna, where he passed his Matura with distinction. His humanistic training center and the art-historical interest of closest relatives, such as his older brother Franz Kieslinger , had a great influence on his life. He then studied geology.

Working life

Kieslinger received his doctorate and immediately worked as an assistant at the Paleontological Institute of the University of Vienna , but also carried out geological surveys, especially in the gold ore area of ​​the Hohe Tauern . In 1930 he qualified as a professor at the Technical University of Vienna for geology, where he received a position and the title of associate professor in 1937.

Between 1938 and 1945 he was an employee of the Reich Office for Soil Research and created a card index of the quarries for Austria and later for the whole of what was then Reich territory. In 1942 he was called up to the Todt Organization , where he worked as a construction manager at the Battle of Narvik with the Wiking Task Force for the construction of submarine bunkers in a granite deposit. After the end of the war, he was in English captivity from May 10, 1945 to December 1946 for a year and a half.

From 1946 he was a geologist at the Federal Monuments Office until, in October 1949 , he was entrusted with the management of the traditional Institute for Geology at the Vienna University of Technology as an associate professor. From 1954 he was a full professor and in 1970 he retired .

Act

He opened up the field of applied geology and petrography, which became his predominant fields of work. His knowledge of technical rock science with an initial focus on weathering phenomena led him to Athens in 1931 as a consultant on the natural stone restoration of the Parthenon and to his publication Destruction of stone structures, their causes and their defense (1932), which is still valid today and only required a few additions which resulted from the changed environmental conditions in the meantime, especially in the big cities.

The preoccupation with the weathering of rock and his interest in art history led him to an early and lifelong contact with the preservation of monuments , where he dealt with the geology of quarries, stone extraction and stone processing. Starting with St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna , during the reconstruction of which Kieslinger contributed all his knowledge and skills, whereby this work ultimately formed the basis for his book Die Steine ​​von St. Stephan (1949), when he dealt with the interface between stone, use, building history and weathering concerned. The monumental work Die Steine ​​der Wiener Ringstrasse (1972) and his monograph on the usable rocks of the federal states of Carinthia (1956) and Salzburg (1964) are of particular importance .

He has received numerous honors for his work, including from geological, cultural institutions and natural stone associations in Austria and Germany. In 1968 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

plant

Kieslinger published eight monographs and 328 individual publications.

  • Destruction of stone buildings. Their causes and their defense. Deuticke, Vienna 1932
  • The stones of St. Stephan. Edited by Association f. Preservation of monuments in Vienna and by the Federal Monuments Office. Herold, Vienna 1949
  • Geology for building construction and plastics. Expertise for stonemasons, sculptors, architects and builders. Austrian commercial publisher, Vienna 1951
  • The building of St. Michael in Vienna and its history, u. a. Earthquake 1590, special print from the yearbook of the Association for the History of the City of Vienna, Vol. 10, 1952/53.
  • The usable rocks of Carinthia. Natural science Association for Carinthia, Klagenfurt 1956
  • The usable rocks of Salzburg. Series: 4th supplement to the communications of the Society of Salzburg Regional Studies, Das Berglandbuch, Salzburg 1964
  • The usable rocks of Salzburg. The mountain map. Salzburg / Stuttgart 1964
  • The Vienna Ringstrasse. Image of an era. Vol. IV: The stones of the Vienna Ringstrasse. Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1972.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b bequests of important Austrian geologists at the Federal Geological Institute in Vienna (PDF; 830 kB). Retrieved June 3, 2010
  2. ^ German National Library , accessed on July 4, 2009
  3. ↑ James R. Underwood, Peter L. Guth: Military geology in war and peace. Boulder, Geological Society of America (1998) Online on Google Books , accessed June 3, 2010
  4. ^ A b Obituary by Walter Eppensteiner for Alois Kieslinger from April 1978 (PDF; 389 kB). Retrieved June 3, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Kieslinger, Alois
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian geologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1975
Place of death Vienna