Richard La Nicca

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Richard La Nicca

Richard La Nicca (born August 16, 1794 in Safien ; † August 27, 1883 in Chur ) was a Swiss engineer , responsible for planning the first Jura water correction and for numerous other structures.

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Richard La Nicca was the son of pastor Christian La Nicca, who once emigrated because of the persecution of the Moravian family. He was born in Safien , where his father worked as a pastor in the valley and in the surrounding villages of Surcuolm and Tenna . In 1804 he moved to Felsberg near Chur when his father changed his job . From 1809 he attended the newly founded Bündner canton school there .

In 1814 he joined a military undertaking that wanted to regain the subject area of Chiavenna , which had been lost in 1797, for Graubünden . In the following years he was a lieutenant in the Swiss regiment of Victor Emanuel I , King of Sardinia .

After the regiment was dissolved, La Nicca went to Tübingen, where she studied technical sciences from 1816 to 1818. During this time, the mathematician Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger took on La Niccas and eagerly supported him. Then La Nicca moved to Milan, where he worked as a clerk .

The Vittorio Emanuele bridge , which La Nicca had to repair after a few years.

In 1818 he got a job as an assistant to Giulio Poccobelli in the construction of the Alpine road over the San Bernardino Pass , where after four years of operation he had to improve the construction of the important bridge Vittorio Emanuele . On August 20, 1820, he married his first wife, Ursula Fischer.

After the death of his wife in 1822, he studied in Munich for a year. After completing his studies, he became the first senior engineer in Graubünden in 1823. In this office he oversaw many construction projects in the canton, such as the construction of the roads over the Julier , Maloja and Bernina or the reconstruction of the destroyed settlements Felsberg (from 1843) and Thusis (from 1845). In 1826 he worked out the project for a Nolla and Rhine correction in Domleschg , which was carried out from 1832. The construction of the Rhine from Reichenau was also based on La Nicca's ideas. From 1831 he was also commissioned to expand the fortress St. Luzisteig .

As a co-founder in 1837, he helped to set up the Swiss Engineering and Architecture Association . Around the same time he began to draw up plans for a railway line over the Splügen Pass . In 1840 he took over the Jura water correction project, which envisaged the dumping of a large moor landscape on the border between the cantons of Bern and Friborg. In the same year he was appointed to the Linth Commission, in which he was represented until 1863. From 1845 onwards, La Nicca concentrated on another railway project that would lead over the low Lukmanier Pass and end in the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. He began initial negotiations with the cantons of St. Gallen, Graubünden and Ticino . In 1853 the decision of the Grand Council of Graubünden fell against him, while Sardinia-Piedmont and Ticino voted for the project. Shortly thereafter, he resigned his position as chief engineer for the canton of Graubünden and joined the construction management of the railway as director, which was later incorporated into a Union Suisse . Despite promising trips and efforts, his project was not crowned with success, as the Gotthardbahn was implemented instead of the Lukmanierbahn . He lost his second wife in 1826 in 1854.

In the previous decades, La Nicca worked on other projects such as correcting the Aare in the Hasle valley in the Bernese Oberland and lowering Lake Hallwiler in the canton of Aargau . In 1878 he saw the introduction of the Aare into Lake Biel, the main work of the Jura water correction.

Richard La Nicca died in Chur in 1883, shortly after he was 90.

Works

Rhine correction

The correction of the Rhine in Domleschg is one of La Nicca's greatest achievements. It was his first integral work. The Domleschg was endangered due to the increasing flooding of the valley floor by the torrent "Nolla". The reasons for these increasing floods were the irresponsible overexploitation of the forest and landscape. In 1828 Richard La Nicca presented a comprehensive project to save the Domleschg. The project was initially viewed by professionals and politicians as impractical and ridiculous. The aims of the project were: the protection of the settlements with the people, the reclamation of the cultivated land and the prevention of further damage by the Nolla, other side streams and by the Rhine itself.

The plan of La Nicca was to calm down the catchment area of ​​the Nolla by building structures. In addition, the main receiving river Rhine was supposed to flow off in an optimal channel, and a parallel channel was planned to carry the fertile Nolla slime to the Rhine so that it could be used for colmation there .

The project was to be financed through the establishment of a joint stock company . The shareholders were not promised money as dividends, but rather fertile cultivated land. But this idea did not work out in the long term, and the project had to be co-financed with cantonal funds from 1852 and finally with federal funds in 1877.

In 1894 the Nolla Canal was built. The canton set up a farm that colmatised the area with this canal for decades. This process was only completed in 2003. Due to his experience and the skills he had acquired while working in Graubünden, his reputation was spread beyond the Swiss border and he became a sought-after expert.

In 1840 Richard La Nicca was appointed to the Linth Commission. Because after the death of Johannes Conrad Escher (* August 24, 1767; † March 9, 1823) the Linth correction project had made little progress. In addition, the risk of flooding threatened to endanger the plant as a whole. La Nicca was immediately commissioned to work out a new project to secure the Linth works . He made certain additions and changes to the existing work. For example, he led the extension of the Escherkanal and a lowering of the Walensee through a newly built river delta .

Jura water correction

La Nicca monument in Nidau

The first Jura water correction was Richard La Nicca's most important hydraulic engineering achievement. With the correction it was intended to rehabilitate the area in the Neuchâtel , Biel and Murten lakes due to the existing risk of flooding. In 1840 La Nicca agreed to tackle the big project. He intended the following solutions for the Seeland: He wanted to divert the Aare directly into Lake Biel so that the sediment could be deposited there (Hagneck Canal) . He also wanted to expand the outflow channel from Lake Biel, lower the level of the three large lakes, deepen the connecting channels between the three lakes and use the lakes as compensation basins for floods.

Many calculations and height measurements were necessary before these measures could begin. It took 27 years for all the arguments to be resolved. La Nicca only saw the opening of the “Hagneck Canal” at the age of 84.

In 1934 a monument to Schneider-La Nicca was unveiled in Nidau . A street in Biel is named after him.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ L. Förster in Allgemeine Bauzeitung: The correction of the Rhine etc , Austrian quarterly for the public building service, Volume 37, 1872, page 135
personal data
SURNAME La Nicca, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss engineer, responsible for planning the first Jura water correction
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Safien
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 1883
Place of death Chur