Georg Lewenton

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Georg Lewenton

Georg Lewenton (born June 5, 1902 in Berlin , † November 17, 1988 in Heidelberg ) was a German civil engineer, professor and cultural politician.

Life

Professional background

Lewenton's father was the son of a Jewish pharmacist in Yalta who was a journalist for Russian newspapers in Berlin; his mother was a Berliner, a Christian and orphaned at an early age. After graduating from the Joachim-Friedrich-Gymnasium in Berlin in 1921 , Lewenton studied civil engineering at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg . His teachers included u. a. Heinrich Müller-Breslau and August Hertwig . After graduating in 1926, Hertwig Lewenton recommended applying as a structural engineer to the Harkort factory in Duisburg- Hochfeld . The bridge construction company Gesellschaft Harkort was one of the leading German companies in the field of steel bridges and structural steelwork. There, Lewenton u. a. from 1926 to 1929 the extension of the Norderelbe bridge in Hamburg and implemented his idea to make the arches of the new bridge full-walled. He soon rose to the position of chief engineer, but in 1932 he switched to Cologne-based Humboldt-Deutzmotoren AG , which also dealt with the design, manufacture and assembly of steel structures. Lewenton then worked as a senior engineer at the Norddeutsche Maschinenfabrik GmbH (Nomag) in Hamborn , but lost his position in the wake of the Reichspogromnacht in November 1938 due to the Nazi race laws. In 1939 he founded the Lewenton engineering office in Duisburg for “design and statics of steel structures”, which today operates under the name LWS Ingenieurgesellschaft für Tragwerksplanung mbH.

Lewenton's first order was the overall planning of the machine hall for the Sack company in Düsseldorf-Rath , a hall with a steel tonnage of 1500 t including all heavy-duty cranes and the foundations. With the help of a few designers, his one-man office was able to produce all construction drawings ready for the workshop. Orders from a Viennese factory followed, so that he spent the last years of the war with his wife Johanna and son Michael in Vienna and returned to Duisburg in the summer of 1945. Lewenton's parents were able to emigrate in time.

After 1945 Lewenton's engineering office worked with great success in the planning and testing of supporting structures in steel bridges and building construction of prominent structures of post-war modernism in the Federal Republic of Germany. His design for the road bridge over the Rhine between Duisburg-Ruhrort and Homberg , developed in 1951 with the MAN Gustavsburg plant , envisaged a cable-stayed bridge , an innovative system that was also proposed by the rival civil engineers Franz Dischinger and Fritz Leonhardt . Duisburg decided on a conventional suspension bridge, which was inaugurated in 1954, but for which Lewenton took over the static-constructive test. In addition to Lewenton's work as a consultant for companies such as MAN Gustavsburg, Demag and Mannesmann , he developed a fruitful collaboration in building construction with architects such as Egon Eiermann , Sep Ruf , Harald Deilmann , Hans Schwippert and Manfred Lehmbruck . Ernst Werner , who was employed by Lewenton in his engineering office in 1950, played an important role in this ; he was appointed test engineer in 1962 and remained loyal to the office as a partner until his death in 1990. In 1970 Lothar Schwarz strengthened the management team of the engineering office and worked for the Duisburg-based LWS Ingenieurgesellschaft für Tragwerksplanung mbH until 2000.

Lewenton's well-known professional competence meant that he was offered the first chairmanship of the Federal Association of Testing Engineers for Structural Engineering, which was newly founded in 1960 (since 1998: BVPI - Federal Association of Testing Engineers for Structural Engineering eV).

In 1962 Lewenton was appointed to the newly created chair of "Structural Analysis for Architects" at the Faculty of Architecture at the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences at the suggestion of Eiermann . In 1965, Lewenton's main scientific assistant, Wolfgang Brennecke, introduced the term “structural engineering” for this area of ​​study , which was soon to establish itself in German-speaking countries. Lewenton's chair focused on the integration of structural conception and design, an objective that became a trademark of structural theory and was further developed in Karlsruhe by Lewenton's successor Fritz Wenzel from 1967 to 1998 at the Institute for Structural Engineering. At this institute Lewenton also represented the subject “Steel Construction for Architects”, from which he and Ernst Werner developed the two-volume pocket book “Introduction to Steel Structural Engineering”, which saw several editions.

Lewenton found his final resting place on November 25, 1988 in the forest cemetery in Duisburg.

Cultural politician

Lewenton joined the SPD in 1945 and was involved from 1948, first as a civic member of the cultural committee of the city of Duisburg, and from 1959 to 1969 as a council member and committee chairman. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein - a theater community of the cities of Düsseldorf and Duisburg.

Under his aegis as chairman of the cultural committee, the Wilhelm- Lehmbruck-Museum of the city of Duisburg came into being, which opened its doors on June 5, 1964, when Lewenton turned 62. In his laudatory speech on Lewenton, the then mayor of the city of Duisburg, August Seeling , stated at the festive meeting of the council of the city of Duisburg on November 3rd: "He was a motor in all questions of the cultural and artistic life of our city". From June 20 to July 30, 1972, the exhibition of the Lewenton Collection took place in the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum. The exhibition included works by Max Beckmann , Marc Chagall , Emil Cimiotti , Salvador Dali , Werner Gilles , HAP Grieshaber , George Grosz , Erich Heckel , Fritz Grasshoff , Adolf de Haer , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Max Slevogt , Berto Lardera , Friedrich Werthmann , to name a few, see. The friend and collector of modern art Lewenton, however, drew a clear line which he did not cross: “If someone has to work with fat or slaughter lambs, that is his business. I fit "

Selected structures

Selection of structures in which Lewenton was significantly involved

  • 1939: Machine and assembly hall of the machine works Sack in Düsseldorf-Rath (design, statics and construction)
  • 1947/48: permanent temporary bridge over the Rhine between Düsseldorf and Oberkassel (adviser to Demag on the design of the temporary bridge)
  • 1949/50: Road bridge over the Rhine between Duisburg and Rheinhausen (consultant to Demag on the design)
  • 1953/54: Road bridge over the Rhine between Duisburg-Ruhrort and Homberg (checking engineer)
  • 1954/55: Block rolling mill in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (consultant and inspector on behalf of Mannesmann AG)
  • 1954–1956: Mannesmann high-rise in Düsseldorf (architect: Paul Schneider-Esleben and Herbert Knothe; structural planning: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1958: House of Science, Düsseldorf (architecture: Hans Schwippert; structural design: Lewenton engineering office)
  • German pavilion at the Brussels World Exhibition in 1958 (architecture: Egon Eiermann and Sep Ruf; structural design: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1958/59: Aggertalklinik, Engelskirchen (architecture: Harald Deilmann; structural planning: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1959–1964: Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum of the City of Duisburg (architecture: Manfred Lehmbruck; structural planning: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1960/61: Mercator-Halle, Duisburg (architecture: Architects Graubner, Stumpf, Voigtländer; structural planning: engineering office Lewenton)
  • 1960/61: Kalderoni House, Duisburg (architecture: architect Mägde, Kronberg; structural planning: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1960–1963: “Berlin Bridge” over the Ruhr and ports in Duisburg in the course of the “Nord-Süd-Straße” city motorway (advice on solid construction: Helmut Domke; advice on steel construction: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1962/63: Stadium grandstand in Duisburg-Wedau (architecture: architect Franz Kurowski and building department of the city of Duisburg; structural planning: engineering office Lewenton)
  • 1962–1966: Zoobrücke, road bridge over the Rhine in Cologne (architecture: Gerd Lohmer; test engineer: Georg Lewenton)
  • 1966/67: Stadtwerketurm, Duisburg (structural engineering: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1966–1968: House of Representatives in Bonn (architecture: Egon Eiermann; structural engineering: Lewenton engineering office)
  • 1967–1969: Federal Ministry of Treasury in Bonn-Bad Godesberg (architecture: Federal Building Directorate; structural planning: engineering office Lewenton, Werner, Schwarz)
  • 1967–1970: Office building of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt / Main (architecture: Architects Apel, Beckert and Becker; structural planning: engineering office Lewenton, Werner, Schwarz)
  • 1967–1972: Olympic roof in Munich (architecture: Benisch & Partner; engineering assessment of the roof in the preliminary design phase: Georg Lewenton, Duisburg; Hubert Rüsch, Munich; René Sarger, Paris; Fred Severud, New York)
  • 1968/69: Federal Ministry of the Interior in Bonn (preliminary draft: Federal Building Directorate; draft and overall planning: Ingenieurbüro Lewenton, Werner, Schwarz in collaboration with the architects "Stieldorf planning group")
  • 1968–1971: Headquarters of IBM Germany in Stuttgart-Vaihingen (architecture: Egon Eiermann; structural planning: engineering office Lewenton, Werner, Schwarz)
  • 1969/70: Canal bridges in the course of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal over the Rednitz and the Zenn (advice to the companies MAN Gustavsburg and Rheinstahl AG by the engineering office Lewenton, Werner, Schwarz)
  • 1969–1971: Administration and training center of Deutsche Olivetti GmbH in Frankfurt / Main (architecture: Egon Eiermann; structural planning: engineering office Lewenton, Werner, Schwarz)
  • 1970/71: Business research institute in Düsseldorf (design and overall planning: Ingenieurbüro Lewenton, Werner, Schwarz in collaboration with the architects Hitzbleck, Meyer, Rinne, Düsseldorf)

Honors

  • 1969: Golden City Ring of the City of Duisburg
  • 1969: City plaque of the city of Duisburg
  • 1983: Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon

Publications (selection)

  • Georg Lewenton: Les Pavillions de la République Fédérale Allemande à l'Exposition Universelle des Bruxelles , in: Acier = Stahl = Steel, June 1958, pp. 241–246.
  • Georg Lewenton: The steel construction of the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum of the city of Duisburg , in: Der Stahlbau, 34. Jg. (1965), H. 8, S. 242–245.
  • Georg Lewenton: Consulting Engineer and Architect , in: Series of publications of the Consulting Engineers Association No. 7, Düsseldorf 1967.
  • Georg Lewenton and Ernst Werner: Introduction to structural steelwork , Part 1, Düsseldorf: Werner-Verlag 1972, ISBN 3-80412-509-3 .
  • Georg Lewenton and Ernst Werner: Introduction to structural steelwork , part 2, Düsseldorf: Werner-Verlag 1974, ISBN 3-80412-517-4 .

swell

  • Manfred Lehmbruck: Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Georg Lewenton 65 years old, in: Stahlbau , 36th year (1967), no . 6, p. 191.
  • Ernst Werner and Lothar Schwarz: Georg Lewenton on June 5, 1972. Duisburg: Walter Braun Verlag 1972, ISBN 3-87096-119-8 .
  • Private art treasures come to light. Lewenton Collection in the Lehmbruck Museum, in: Rheinische Post v. June 20, 1972.
  • Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum: Georg Lewenton Collection: Wilhelm Lehmbruck-Museum June 20 to July 30, 1972, Duisburg 1972.
  • Wilhelm Poser (Ed.): Georg Lewenton 80 years: Lectures at the festive event June 30, 1982. From Research and Teaching No. 17, Karlsruhe: Institute for Supporting Structures of the TH Karlsruhe 1982.
  • Fritz Wenzel: Georg Lewenton. Lecture for the anniversary celebration of the 25th anniversary of the chair and 20 years of the institute, Karlsruhe: Institute for Support Structures of the TH Karlsruhe 1987.
  • August Seeling: Memories of Georg Lewenton , in: Duisburger Journal 7/1990, pp. 10–12.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 80 years of the LWS through the ages. Ingenieurgesellschaft für Tragwerksplanung mbH, accessed on August 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Structural planning from Duisburg. Ingenieurgesellschaft für Tragwerksplanung mbH, accessed on August 26, 2019 .
  3. ^ Federal Association of Testing Engineers for Structural Engineering eV
  4. ^ Karl-Eugen Kurrer : History of structural engineering. In search of balance , Berlin: Ernst & Sohn 2016, p. 931, ISBN 978-3-433-03134-6 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Biography Georg Lewenton , 150 years SPD Duisburg; PDF
  6. ^ Ernst Werner and Lothar Schwarz: Georg Lewenton on June 5, 1972 . Duisburg: Walter Braun Verlag 1972, pp. 40–41, ISBN 3-87096-119-8 .
  7. ↑ Private art treasures come to light . Lewenton Collection in the Lehmbruck Museum, in: Rheinische Post from June 20, 1972
personal data
SURNAME Lewenton, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer, professor and cultural politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 17th November 1988
Place of death Heidelberg