Thomas Seeauer

Thomas Seeauer (* around 1485 in Bad Goisern ; † around 1586) was a hydraulic engineer and a senior employee of the imperial salt works (Klaus and hydraulic engineer).

activity

Traunfall

Thomas Seeauer was the imperial forest master in Hallstatt . He achieved outstanding technical achievements in water regulation, by making the Traun navigable , especially the Traunfall , then the Enns and the Vltava (from Budweis to Prague ). One of his masterpieces was the construction of the Seeklause in Steeg , which used the water of Lake Hallstattdammed up and then sent the heavily loaded salt ships with a surge of water through all the shallows safely down the Traun. He not only made the Traun navigable, but also the Vltava outside of its most important sphere of activity, thereby enabling the orderly salt economy with Bohemia . He also made the Enns and Mur navigable.

buildings

• 1549–1555 management of the expansion of shipping on the Vltava from Budweis to Prague.
• 1552–1554 construction of the 400 m long wooden canal at the Traunfall; the final expansion of the waterfall into a "mobile fall" came about.
• In 1572 the Klause von Steeg (municipality Bad Goisern) built in 1511 was destroyed by floods. In 1573, Thomas Seeauer built a new Seeklause in Steeg, using what was then a revolutionary process, so that the salt rafters could float the ships loaded with salt downstream on the flood. This technical masterpiece of the Renaissance still stands at the place where the Hallstätter See flows into the Traun (in the same year, for example, Leonardo da Vinci designed a horizontally arranged water wheel based on the turbine principle).

Awards

• Seeauer was raised to the nobility by Emperor Rudolf II in 1582 because of his services in the construction of hydraulic structures on the Traun, Moldau, Enns and Mur rivers.

Web links

• Website of the Seeau Foundation