Leonhard Obermeyer

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Leonhard Obermeyer (born February 13, 1924 in Großmehring near Ingolstadt ; † December 28, 2011 ) was a German civil engineer .

Life

Leonhard Obermeyer was born in 1924 into a large family in Großmehring near Ingolstadt in Upper Bavaria. After an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, he completed his engineering degree at the Munich State Building School in 1948. He then studied at the Technical University in Munich until 1953, where he received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation for his outstanding achievements . After graduating, he worked as a structural engineer and designer at Dyckerhoff & Widmann in Munich. He worked together with the engineer Ulrich Finsterwalder and others on the construction of the Black Forest Hall, built in Karlsruhe in 1954, with its self-supporting shell roof made of prestressed concrete, which was considered one of the most spectacular structures at the time.

In 1958, Leonhard Obermeyer started his own business with the Obermeyer engineering office . The first orders for smaller bridge structures got off to such a good start that by 1960 he already employed ten people.

One of his most important projects is the general planning of the Karlsplatz-Stachus transport structure in the center of Munich . With a construction volume of 500,000 m³ in four basement floors and approx. 25,000 m² of built-up area, it was the first and, for a long time, largest structure of this type in Munich, in which the underground, tramway, street, pedestrian crossing and sales area were to be combined. The expansion to a later S-Bahn stop was already planned. As a pioneer, Leonhard Obermeyer used the top-down construction method for the first time on a large construction site . In this way, the largest traffic junction in Munich at the time was accessible again within a short time. Today this construction method has established itself as the standard in urban tunnel construction.

In addition to day-to-day business, Leonhard Obermeyer did his doctorate in 1970 under the direction of Hans St. Stefaniak, Technical University of Munich, on the subject of “Impact loading on an elastic structure. A contribution to the dynamic behavior of a multi-storey building with elastic side walls on a flexible subsurface with a vertical impact of finite duration ”.

Leonhard Obermeyer continued to prove himself to be a pioneer in his professional field in the early use of the computer. He was a personal friend of Konrad Zuse , from whom he had an IBM 1130 installed for half a million DM in 1967. When moving into the new, owner-owned office building in Hansastraße, Munich, which is still the company's headquarters today, an IBM 370/145 hardware and additional equipment worth 8 million DM were installed.

The engineering office was run from 1958 to 1973 as the Obermeyer engineering office , from 1973 to 1990 as the Obermeyer GmbH planning office and since 1990 as Obermeyer Planen + Beraten GmbH . On December 4, 2006, Leonhard Obermeyer transferred the management of the group of companies, which was now represented with numerous branches and subsidiaries and more than 1200 employees in 19 countries, to his nephew Maximilian Grauvogl.

Leonhard Obermeyer died on December 28, 2011 at the age of 87. The 1st Class Federal Cross of Merit awarded to him on July 26, 2011 was presented posthumously to his wife Gertrud Obermeyer on March 21, 2012.

Awards and honors

literature

  • Leonhard Obermeyer: Leonhard Obermeyer. In: Concrete and reinforced concrete construction , August 1998.
  • Leonhard Obermeyer: Leonhard Obermeyer. In: Beton- und Stahlbetonbau , 1999.
  • Klaus Stiglat: Civil engineers and their work. Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 2004, pp. 274–281.
  • Leonhard Obermeyer (ed.): Planning and constructing. A presentation of selected works by the Obermeyer engineering office after 10 years of activity. Munich, 1968.
  • Obermeyer planning office (ed.): Stachus Karlsplatz, Stachus Bau. Opening of the transport and shopping center in the state capital of Munich on November 26, 1970. Munich, 1970.
  • Obermeyer Planen + Beraten Planning company for construction, environment, traffic and technical equipment mbH (Hrsg.): Technische Basis U-Bahn Munich. Munich, 1990.
  • Planungsbüro Obermeyer, Society for Planning in Construction mbH (Ed.): 25 years of Planungsbüro Obermeyer. About our activities from the 10th anniversary to 1983. Munich, 1984.
  • Leonhard Obermeyer (Ed.): Obermeyer Planen + Beraten. 40 years of Obermeyer. Munich, 2000.
  • Leonhard Obermeyer (Ed.): 50 years of Obermeyer. Munich, 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituaries in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
  2. ↑ Honorary Senators of the Technical University of Munich. Technical University of Munich, accessed on August 19, 2011 .
personal data
SURNAME Obermeyer, Leonhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer and honorary professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Großmehring
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 2011