Xaver Imfeld
Xaver Imfeld (born April 21, 1853 in Sarnen ; † February 21, 1909 in Zurich ) was a Swiss engineering topographer .
introduction
Xaver Imfeld was born in Sarnen and attended primary and secondary school there. After the family moved to Lucerne in 1867 , he switched to the industrial school there. He proved his topographical talent at the age of seventeen when he modeled a relief of Pilate 1:50,000. In autumn 1872 he began studying engineering topography at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic (today ETH ) in Zurich.
He was one of the most important Swiss panorama draftsmen, relief artist, cartographer and planner of mountain railways of his time. From 1876 to 1890 he worked for the Federal Topographical Bureau (today swisstopo ). More than twenty sheets of the Siegfried Atlas come from him. He drew over forty mountain panoramas, modeled thirteen alpine reliefs and was responsible for numerous engineering projects. In 1888 Imfeld opened his own office in Zurich as a freelance engineer and private topographer. He found his final resting place in the Enzenbühl cemetery .
cards
Relief map of Central Switzerland 1887 and La Chaine du Mont Blanc 1890.
In 1887 the Association for the Promotion of Tourism on Lake Lucerne published the relief map of Central Switzerland on a scale of 1: 100,000 by Imfeld. The mountains appear outstanding and were erected at 45 degrees in the construction. At that time, it took at least a year for the engraving, the proofs and the corrections. The special thing about Xaver Imfeld's watercolor on this card is the masterful coloring. He painted with a brush. He applied white primer to the glacier and snow parts, with the effect that these alpine regions appear brightly shining. The deeper areas were given darker colors. This created levels of altitude that run from light into dark. The side view of the houses was very typical for Imfeld. White side walls with a red roof. In 1890 Albert Barbey, President of the Les Diablerets section of the SAC , commissioned Imfeld to draw up a relief map of the Mont-Blanc area. The La Chaine du Mont-Blanc on a scale of 1: 50,000 was to become a masterpiece. The map is characterized by a high alpine glacier landscape. In lower elevations, the brown-gray tones dominate, while the forests are only faintly indicated.
Reliefs
The relief of the virgin group 1900
During three years of work, a giant emerged under Imfeld's reliefs, the Jungfrau group . At a scale of 1: 2,500, it had an area of 25 square meters and was 1.40 m high. It was created in connection with the Jungfrau Railway projected by Imfeld in 1896 . It advertised the Bernese Oberland at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 , especially for the planned Jungfrau Railway. It was awarded a Grand Prix . During the Second World War it was destroyed in a bombing in the Alpine Museum in Munich .
Panoramas
Imfeld's drawings are not just geometric mountain sketches, but natural representations of landscapes, so to speak reliefs in two-dimensional form. The panoramas are characterized by a masterful representation of the mountains. He combined scientific accuracy with artistic perfection.
Engineering projects
Between 1886 and 1909 he carried out several engineering works, mainly for road and rail projects. They were mostly terrain recordings with topographical representations, more precisely detailed curve maps and route guidance .
Matterhornbahn
In 1890 Imfeld planned a railway on the famous Matterhorn . A funicular railway for the first stage to Schwarzsee and the second stage from Schwarzsee to Whympershütte should be handled by an electric rack railway. The third and last part, an electric cable car, would have been invisible as it would have led in a tunnel up to the ridge of the ridge at almost 4,478 meters above sea level. Restaurants and some sleeping cabins were to be built on the summit.
literature
- Madlena Cavelti Hammer, Niklaus von Flüe et al .: Xaver Imfeld, 1853–1909, master of Alpine topography . IG Xaver Imfeld (ed.), By Ah Druck, Sarnen 2006, ISBN 978-3-9522809-4-2 .
- Paul Caminada: pioneers of alpine topography . AS Verlag, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-905111-99-3 .
- Eduard Imhof: Imfeld, Xaver. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 145 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Website about Xaver Imfeld
- On the 100th anniversary of death
- Xaver Imfeld on the Relief Shading website
- Xaver Imfeld on the Terrain Models website
- Urban Schertenleib: Imfeld, Xaver. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Imfeld, Xaver. In: Sikart
Individual evidence
- ^ Relief artist Xaver Imfeld
- ^ Zermatt Hochgebirgs-Bahnen , article about the Matterhornbahn project , based on the documents of Xaver Imfeld. In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung , 17/18 (1891), issue 23, pp. 145ff. doi : 10.5169 / seals-86120
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Imfeld, Xaver |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss topographer and cartographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 21, 1853 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sarnen |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 21, 1909 |
| Place of death | Zurich |