Guillaume Knight

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Guillaume Knight
The Église rouge in Neuchâtel, a cultural asset of national importance

Guillaume Ritter (born August 13, 1835 in Neuchâtel , † September 16, 1912 in Monruz, also today Neuchâtel) (also Wilhelm Ritter ) was a Swiss hydraulic engineer and architect .

The son of Alsatian parents completed his studies in Paris at the age of 21. After working for the production of a central water supply for Avignon in 1869, the project for the water supply in Freiburg followed from 1870 to 1875, in 1875 for Geneva and in the two following years for Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds .

The construction and planning of the water supply in Freiburg, where he was also a co-founder of the Société des Eaux et Forêts ( Groupe E ), was daring at the time. The waterworks for which the Sarine was dammed was long considered one of the most important facilities in Switzerland. The supply of the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds from the waters of the Areuse, which had to be raised by 500 m for this, was also ambitious. Ritter received honorary citizenship of the city for the technical implementation.

In addition, Ritter made many other suggestions for the overall commercial use of hydropower, for canton Neuchâtel between 1864 and 1879, for example, the use of Seyon , Areuse and Doubs in terms of hydropower (for industry and transport, namely funiculars), electricity generation, drinking water supply and the use of human waste water as Fertilizer. Ritter's main interest was

«... the aim of making the achievements of progress accessible to everyone: clean drinking water, industrial energy and electrical lighting. He coupled the precision of a technician and the imagination of a believer in the future with a bold entrepreneurial spirit and was convinced and convincing of his ideas. "

Just as many of his more than one hundred projects remained paper, primarily in Switzerland and France, his most financially and technically complex proposal did not get beyond the planning and acquisition stage, the water supply for Paris from the water of Lake Neuchâtel, a 37 km base tunnel under the Swiss Jura and a 470 km long pipeline would have been necessary for this, Ritter reckoned with the start of construction in 1900, 400 million francs in investment costs and financing until the year 2000.

As an architect, Ritter built a few residential buildings in his hometown of Neuchâtel and of course the high-rise buildings for the hydropower plants, including the Corcelles reform home and, late in his career, the Catholic Church in Neuchâtel (1899-1906). He also went into politics late: he was a member of the Liberals from 1903 to 1912 in the city council of Neuchâtel and from 1904 to 1912 also in the cantonal council.

Fonts (selection)

  • Une page d'histoire concernant l'utilisation des forces motrices du Rhône et de la régularisation du Lac Léman à Genève. Neuchâtel: Borel 1890
  • Mémoire sur l'hydrology of the gorges de La Reuse et du bassin de Noiraigue. Neuchâtel: Impr. Soc. typ. 1883. (Reprinted from the Bulletin de la Societé des sciences naturelles)
  • Eau, force, lumière, électricité, ou utilization rationnelle des forces hydrauliques de La Reuse. Neuchâtel: Impr. Soc. typ. 1882.
  • Sur l'hydrologie des sources néocomiennes en général et plus particulièrement sur celle des sources de Gorgier (tannes) et de Saint-Aubin. Neuchâtel: Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Naturelles de Neuchâtel, 1892
  • Alimentation de la ville de Paris en eau, force et lumière électrique au moyen d'une dérivation des eaux des lacs du Jura suisse. Reprint from: Paris: Mémoires de la Société des ingénieurs civils, 1888

literature

  • Elisabeth Castellani Zahir: Guillaume [Wilhelm] Ritter. In: Isabelle Rucki and Dorothee Huber (eds): Architects Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century Basel: Birkhäuser 1998. pp. 446–447. ISBN 3-7643-5261-2
  • W. Ritter. (Nekrolog) In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung Vol. 60 (1912). P. 192 f. On-line

supporting documents

  1. ^ Elisabeth Castellani Zahir: Guillaume [Wilhelm] Ritter. In: Isabelle Rucki and Dorothee Huber (eds): Architects Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century Basel: Birkhäuser 1998. p. 446.
  2. ↑ Guillaume Ritter: Propositions faites au Conseil municipal de la ville de Paris concernant un projet d'alimentation de cette Capitale en eau, force et lumière électrique aux moyen de le dérivation des eaux du lac de Neuchâtel . Neuchâtel 1887. In: Architects lexicon, 19th / 20th century.
personal data
SURNAME Ritter, Guillaume
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ritter, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss hydraulic engineer and architect
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuchâtel
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1912
Place of death Neuchâtel NE