Maurice Kochlin

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Maurice Koechlin around 1886

Maurice Koechlin (* March 8, 1856 in Bühl/ Buhl , Alsace ; † January 14, 1946 in Veytaux , Switzerland) was a Swiss-French engineer .

Life

"300 meter high pillar" drawn in 1884

Maurice Koechlin was born to Jean Frédérique Koechlin, who ran a spinning mill. The Koechlin family was a respected upper middle-class and industrialist family, whose various members lived in the Alsace-Northern Switzerland area and also assumed political responsibility: several mayors of Mulhouse came from this family in the 19th century.

He attended the Lycée in Mulhouse and then enrolled to study engineering at the then still young Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) - at that time still under the name Polytechnikum - in Zurich . There he met the university teacher Karl Culmann , who decisively shaped his professional future as an engineer.

In 1877 he finished his studies at the top of his class and joined the Chemin de fer de l'Est railway company as an engineer . Two years later he joined Gustave Eiffel 's office , where he became senior engineer. One of the first works was the collaboration on the Maria Pia Bridge , a steel truss arch bridge over the Douro , which had been designed by Théophile Seyrig , Eiffel's partner at the time.

Based on the same principle, but technically more refined, the Garabit Viaduct , which was to provide a rail link to the south of France, was planned by Koechlin and executed by Eiffel's company (1879–1884). The viaduct crosses a 120 meter deep gorge of the Truyère in Auvergne .

It is little known that the Eiffel company and thus Koechlin were involved in the Statue of Liberty by the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi : the supporting substructure was designed by Koechlin (1881-1886).

The most important project, however, was to be the Eiffel Tower , whose construction idea and static calculations came from Koechlin, but which Eiffel presented as his own contribution to the World Exhibition of 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The Eiffel Tower would not exist without Koechlin.

When Eiffel retired from the company in 1893, Koechlin continued to run the business until 1940. For the last few years he retired to his home in Veytaux on Lake Geneva , where he died at the age of 89.

Maurice Koechlin was an officer in the French Legion of Honour .

literature

  • Helmut Stalder: Maurice Koechlin. Paris owes the Eiffel Tower to him. In: H. Stalder, "Misunderstood Visionaries. 24 Swiss Life Stories", pp. 21-27. NZZ Libro, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-03823-715-0

web links

Commons : Maurice Koechlin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kochlin, Maurice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-French engineer
BIRTH DATE March 8, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Buhl , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1946
PLACE OF DEATH Veytaux , Switzerland