Otto Taaks

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Otto Christian Taaks (born September 10, 1849 in Norden ; † February 28, 1924 in Hanover ) was a German civil engineer and architect .

Childhood and youth

Otto Christian Taaks was born in Norden ( Friesland ) in 1849 . His parents were Ihno Hermann Cadovius Taaks, senior court attorney in Aurich (1815–1863), and Elisabeth Charlotte Taaks, b. Fridag (1824-1898). After the father's death, the mother was left with nine children. She moved to Hanover ; Otto Taaks stayed in Leer for some time , where he attended high school. He then worked for a year as a Baueleve in Leer.

Education

From 1869 he studied at the Berlin Building Academy .

In 1870/1871 he took part in the German-French War as a guardsman in the Werder Corps .

From 1872 to 1874 he continued his studies at the Polytechnic School in Hanover . Among other things, he was a student of the architecture professor Conrad Wilhelm Hase . In 1875 he passed the construction manager examination . Until 1880 he worked as a trainee lawyer in Frankfurt am Main and Wilhelmshaven , then as an assistant at the Technical University of Charlottenburg . In 1881 he passed the master builder examination and was appointed government master builder ( assessor in the public building administration).

In the same year he married Antonie Hagen, the daughter of a building councilor . He had four children, three of whom died early. He was in close contact with his youngest brother, the hydraulic engineering engineer Georg Taaks , who works in Bremen .

Activity as civil engineer

In 1881 Otto Christian Taaks began working as a freelance civil engineer in Hanover. He founded an engineering office for the planning and construction of buildings and industrial plants. In 1889 he was finally dismissed from civil service after years of leave. He worked as a freelance civil engineer until 1923.

He planned and managed large construction projects such as the buildings of the Pelikan works (new building 1903–1906), the Döhrener wool laundry and combing , the Ilseder hut , the Garvenswerke as well as traffic structures, canals, water supply , drainage and sewage treatment plants (including in Goslar and in Hannover), dams , river regulations , dams , hydroelectric power plants , railways alignments (auxiliary and working paths) and bridges. New construction methods were developed and used.

In 1890/1891 he and his brother Georg trained at the Technical University of Hanover with Professor Wilhelm Friedrich Kohlrausch in the then new field of electrical engineering .

In 1912 he wrote the study “The Rhine-North Sea Canal” together with the Berlin civil engineer Alexander Herzberg (1841-1912), in which the construction of a connection between the Rhine and the North Sea between Wesel and Emden was proposed.

Participation in associations and committees

Otto Taaks was a leader in a number of associations and bodies:

He was chairman of other committees in the German Steam Boiler Committee, the Committee for the Schedule of Fees for Architects and Engineers and the German Committee for Arbitration.

Honors

literature

  • Conrad Matschoss : men of technology. A biographical handbook , ed. on behalf of the Association of German Engineers, Berlin: VDI-Verlag, 1925, p. 271; online as a PDF document
  • Albert Lefèvre: The Contribution of Hanoverian Industry to Technical Progress , in: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series Vol. 24 (1970), Issue 3/4, p. 238

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Herbert Mundhenke (edit.): The matriculation at the Higher Trade School, the Polytechnic School and the Technical University of Hanover, Volume 1: 1831-1881. (= Publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen , IX, Section 6, Volume I.) Hildesheim 1988, p. 196.
  2. ↑ a b c VDI magazine , No. 16 of April 19, 1924, p. 381 f.
  3. ↑ Alexander Herzberg, Otto Taaks: The Rhine-North Sea Canal. A study. Springer, Berlin 1912.
  4. ↑ Conrad Matschoß : Men of Technology. A biographical manual. Springer, Berlin 1925, p. 270. ( online as PDF document)
  5. ^ Volkmar Herkner: 100 years of order in vocational training. From the German Committee for Technical Schools (DATSCH) to the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). ( online as PDF)
  6. ^ VDI-Nachrichten of February 3, 1926, 1st supplement, No. 5.
personal data
SURNAME Taaks, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Taaks, Otto Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer and architect
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1849
PLACE OF BIRTH north
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1924
Place of death Hanover