Owen Williams (engineer)

Express Building, Manchester

Sir Evan Owen Williams (born March 20, 1890 in Tottenham , † May 23, 1969 in Hemel Hempstead ) was a British civil engineer and architect.

Familiarity with the new material concrete

William's parents had a small shop in Tottenham. They were of Welsh origin and came from the countryside. Williams excelled in math at school. After graduating from school, he worked as an apprentice at the Electrical Tramways Co. in London from 1907 and during this time also earned a bachelor's degree with top grades as an engineer at the Northern Polytechnic Institute (later the University of North London) in evening classes. From 1912 he was with the American Trussed Concrete Company, where he became chief design engineer and 1913/14 headed the branch in Swansea. Reinforced concrete had been newly developed at that time in Great Britain and mainly in continental Europe and the USA, and companies with a foreign background specializing in reinforced concrete, such as the one in the Williams, were commissioned in many cases. Among other things, he was involved in the building of the Gramophone Company (chief engineer A. Henderson). In 1915 he became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and married that same year. During the First World War he was involved in numerous industrial buildings with precast concrete parts. In 1916 he went to the Wells Aviation Company, where he was involved in the construction of a flying boat. In 1917 he became an Associate Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. The aircraft manufacturer soon died and the rest of the war he worked for the Admiralty on concrete ships and concrete slipways.

Own engineering office after the First World War

In 1919 he founded his own engineering office Williams Concrete Structures and sold his own system of prefabricated concrete parts (called Fabricrete). He was the senior consultant engineer on the British Empire Exhition 1924/25 (appointed in 1921), which included the old Wembley Stadium and the Palace of Industry in Brent, the first building in Great Britain with a concrete facade. He also worked with the architect Maxwell Ayrton in bridge construction in Scotland (for example Montrose Bridge). In 1932 he designed the Waterloo Bridge in London as an architect and engineer. In the 1930s he designed some modernist buildings such as the Boots D 10 Building in Nottingham (built 1930-1932) and the Boots Packed Wet Goods Factory in Beeston and the Daily Express Building in Manchester (built 1936-1939).

He was also the architect of the Dollis Hill Synagogue and the Pioneer Health Center buildings, part of an experiment in social medicine in Peckham (called the Peckham Experiment) by doctors George Scott Williamson and Innes Hope Pearse from 1926 to about 1950 . Originally he was commissioned for the Dorchester Hotel in London in 1929, both as an architect and as an engineer, but the dual role was hyped in the press and he lost the contract.

Palace of Industry of the British Empire Exhibition 1924

Second World War and afterwards, motorway construction

A blow to him was that one of his first buildings in World War II, the Vickers-Armstrong aircraft factory, collapsed during construction in 1941. Although he was exonerated, it was not until 1945 that his reputation was restored. With a few exceptions, he turned away from building buildings after the war. Exceptions were, for example, the BOAC Maintenance Headquarters at Heathrow Airport and the Daily Mirror building in Holborn, London.

Gravelly Hill Interchange (Spaghetti junction)

After the Second World War he was very busy on the motorway, known is the Gravelly Hill Interchange at the meeting point of the M6 ​​and A 38 near Birmingham , popularly known as the spaghetti junction . He also planned the M1 motorway from 1951, with Williams planning many of the bridges himself. Economic aspects were in the foreground and not aesthetic (for which he was also criticized in the press). In 19 months he planned 131 bridges and 92 culverts. Many are still standing today (2018), although Williams realized that the use of reinforced concrete severely limited their lifespan (unlike arched bridges made only of concrete like his Wansford Bridge). His engineering office was later called Sir Owen Williams & Partner. His partner was his long-time employee Thomas Vandy and his son Owen Tudor (OT)

During the negotiations with the Ministry of Transport for the construction of the M1, the engineering firm Williams was able to ensure that all rights to the bridge designs remained with them, so that license fees were due years later for the extensions.

After his health deteriorated, his son took over the management of the engineering office in 1966. Williams died of a stroke in 1969. Shortly before his death, he was still involved as an appraiser in a dispute over the construction of a dock for nuclear submarines.

Honors, views on architecture

In 1924, when he was only 34, he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor for his work at Wembley Stadium. In 1927 he received the Telford Gold Medal of the ICE for his essay The philosophy of masonry arches . In 1961 he received the Telford Gold Medal a second time for an essay with his son on highway designs. His articles on concrete (The Potent of Concrete , A concrete thought) in the 1930s also attracted attention and he was known for his view that architects only decorated what the structural engineers had designed. Honesty in material and structure should take precedence over decoration, deception and concealment in the design.

His brother Robert Osian was a successful banker.

Web links

• Owen Williams, Engineering Timelines
• Graces Guide to British Industrial History, Owen Williams and Partners