Hans Lorenz (motorway engineer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hans Lorenz (center) on a business trip in the 1950s

Hans Lorenz (born May 22, 1900 in Nördlingen , † October 24, 1975 in Nuremberg ) was a German road construction engineer , alignment specialist and an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Munich . He is considered an important pioneer of modern motorway construction in Europe.

Live and act

Reichsautobahn Vienna – Breslau Bridge ruins near Jevíčko in Moravia, landscape lawyer Friedrich Schaub
Hans Lorenz and his colleague Schreier during the construction of the Spessart motorway at the Theodolit
Model study of the motorway bridge in Linhartice near Mährisch Trübau (Czech Moravská Třebová)

Hans Lorenz was born as the son of the customs assistant Hans Lorenz and his wife Marie, b. Schwarzländer born in Nördlingen . After finishing school in Asch and Regensburg, he studied at the Technical University of Munich from 1919 to 1923 . He then worked as an assistant to Professor Schachenmayer for two years . In 1930 he came to the road and river construction department in Speyer as a government master builder and worked from 1934 to 1935 as head of the Wandsbek construction section of the Hamburg – Lübeck motorway . From 1935 to 1945 he was appointed by Fritz Todt as a consultant for design tasks in the General Inspection for German Roads in Berlin . From 1939 to 1942 he was responsible for the planning and construction management of the pioneering project of the Reichsautobahn Vienna – Brno – Breslau (route 138) . It counts thanks to the landscape- compatible lines that were consistently implemented for the first time by landscape architect Alwin Seifert , the clothoid calculations used by Lorenz for the first time and the probably first ecological service area concepts in Boskowitz (Czech: Boskovice) by the landscape architect Friedrich Schaub and his advisor, the anthroposophist Max Karl Schwarz from Worpswede , one of the most influential projects for road construction in the early Federal Republic.

After the war, Lorenz, as government building director, was deputy head of the Nuremberg Motorway Construction Office from 1950 to 1965, which is now the North Bavarian Motorway Directorate . From 1949 he was responsible for the planning and construction of the Spessart line. As early as 1935, Lorenz was a member of the landscape design committee of the influential Research Association for Roads, which is now the Research Society for Roads and Transport in Cologne , and was in charge of it from 1950 to 1969. He is considered to be the father of the guidelines for the optical lines, for the planting and for the rest areas on the motorways. He organized landscape conferences and gave numerous lectures for specialists at home and abroad.

As a road construction engineer, Hans Lorenz always demanded the unity of ecology and technology. After Alwin Seifert left the company after 1945, he continued to be a committed representative of landscape- compatible routing and motorway design. The introduction of the clothoid as a routing element and the optical alignment also increased road safety. He published the basics of his modern conception of road construction in his standard work, Trassierung und Gestaltung von Straßen und Autobahnwelt , published in 1971 .

Honors

The Technical University of Munich awarded him an honorary doctorate Dr.-Ing. E. h. for his services to modern road construction, in particular to line management, route engineering and landscaping. The Research Association for Roads and Transportation recognized his achievements by awarding them their badge of honor. In 1973 he was awarded the Peter-Josef-Lenne-Medal in gold by the Johann-Wolfgang-von-Goethe Foundation in Basel in recognition of his services to the land maintenance in Europe .

literature

  • Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Wirth: Gesamtkunstwerk Straße - The story of the motorway pioneer Hans Lorenz. Franz Schiermeier Verlag, Munich, 2019
  • Hugo Kasper, Walter Schürba, Hans Lorenz: The Klotoide as a routing element. Bonn, Dümmler 1954.
  • EW Goerner: Street history, handbook for road systems. 1953-1982.
  • Wolfgang F. Jäger: The route design of the Reichsautobahn 1933 to 1945 - an engineering analysis based on selected archive holdings. FGSV-Verlag, Cologne 2013.
  • Hans Lorenz: Routing and design of streets and highways. Bauverlag, 1971.
  • Hans Lorenz: Design tasks in road construction. Volk-und-Reich-Verlag, Berlin 1938.
  • Charlotte Reitsam: Reichsautobahn in the field of tension between nature and technology. Diss. TU Munich, 2000.
  • Charlotte Reitsam: The concept of 'down-to-earth garden art' Alwin Seiferts - technical background and reception until the post-war period . Frankfurt a. M. 2001.

Web links

Commons : Vienna-Wrocław motorway  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Lorenz, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German road construction engineer and route specialist
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Noerdlingen , Bavaria
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1975
Place of death Nuremberg