Friedrich Gerhard Wahl

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Friedrich Gerhard Wahl (born March 5, 1748 in Annweiler am Trifels , † December 11, 1826 in Kaiserslautern ) was a German engineer and architect and the last construction director of the Duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrücken .

Life

Wahl was born on March 5, 1748 as one of five children of the reformed pastor Josef Friedrich Gerhard Wahl and his wife Susanne Margarethe born. Wernigk was born in Annweiler am Trifels.

In 1750 the family moved to Odenbach , where the father received the second pastorate.

In 1764 he was accepted into the secondary school of the Zweibrücker Gymnasium . In 1769, after completing his studies, Wahl joined the road and bridge administration of the Duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrücken. In 1771 he was appointed agricultural and road inspector . In the following year he was given the chief inspection of road and bridge construction for the entire duchy and in 1787 he was appointed director of agriculture and roads .

When the French Revolution reached the Duchy, Wahl and his family fled to Michelstadt in the Odenwald in autumn 1793 , where the Count of Erbach-Fürstenau and von Erbach-Schönberg gave him a modest position. So he designed an extension of the Fürstenau Palace , the classicist "New Palace". In the spring of 1814 they finally managed to return to the Palatinate . Wahl became chief inspector of road and bridge construction in the Donnersberg department and, in 1816, after the Palatinate had become Bavarian , royal engineer 1st class with his office in Kaiserslautern. Shortly before retirement, in 1818, he was appointed Royal District Engineer .

Wahl lived as a pensioner in Kaiserslautern until his death on December 11, 1826.

plant

Duke Christian IV commissioned Wahl with an extensive new and expansion program for the country roads . In particular, the large Herzogstrasse , the central road axis through the duchy between the residences Zweibrücken and Meisenheim , was expanded by Wahl. In order to raise the funds for the expansion of the other country roads despite tight budgets, a toll was introduced, according to which a fee had to be paid for every hour a road was used. On December 12, 1772, the road money order for all overland roads in the duchy was issued, which was then able to guarantee the progress of the work alone, especially under the rule of Charles II August .

Due to the territorial fragmentation of the duchy, Wahl constantly campaigned for the Palatinate administration to do something to improve road conditions in their area. Despite imperial regulations already in place at the time, these attempts were largely unsuccessful. After 1790 Wahl initiated the replacement of the road surface , which up until then had mostly consisted of gravel , with so-called rattle stones from the Rammelsbach quarries . For all road sections he appointed responsible roadside attendants or roadside attendants .

In 1786 Wahl anonymously published the work Theoretical and practical lessons in road and bridge construction gathered from experience (Zweibrücken, published by the Hahn brothers), a summary of all the knowledge of the time in the field of road and bridge construction. The book became an indispensable guide for professionals of the time. It was only in a supplement to the theoretical and practical lessons in road and bridge construction published in 1789 (Zweibrücken, published by the Hahnische Hofbuchhandlung publishing house) that Wahl identified himself as an author.

In addition to road and bridge construction, Wahl was also active in building construction; He created plans for numerous classical churches and rectories, for example in Allenbach 1780, Lambsborn 1781, Callbach 1782, Breitenbach (Pfalz) 1783, Ulmet 1783, Contwig 1785, Hornbach 1785, Obermoschel 1786, Wolfersweiler 1786, Odenbach 1788, Annweiler am Trifels 1789 , Kleinich (Hunsrück) 1790 and Becherbach (Palatinate) 1791.

literature

  • Wolfgang Medding: Friedrich Gerhard Wahl, the last building director of the Duchy of Zweibrücken . In: Mitteilungen des Historisches Verein der Pfalz 53 (1955), pp. 47–86.
  • Lothar Keller: Friedrich Gerhard Wahl . In: Heimatkalender 1979 for the Pirmasenser and Zweibrücker Land, pp. 115–119.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Vogelgesang: The Zweibrücker matriculation of the Herzog-Wolfgang-Gymnasium 1631-1811 , Speyer 1967, p. 106
  2. ↑ Johannes Schöndorf: Zweibrücken book printing for the princely period 1488-1794 , Zweibrücken 1995, pp. 198 ff., 261 f. ISBN 3-924171-21-1

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wahl, Friedrich Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German builder
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1748
PLACE OF BIRTH Annweiler am Trifels
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1826
Place of death Kaiserslautern