Here's something which I didn't mention last night which I wonder if older structural engineers may shed some light on. The correspondance in Lord Holford's archive at the University of Liverpool includes lots of debate about the views north-south to-from the harbour/proposed civic centre and mountain. Holford was clearly keen to maintain that visual link, but was also convinced of the need for an elevated limited access road along the foreshore, and so the debate was about the degree of elevation, and whether it was preferable to have an elevated freeway on a structure, or a lower freeway mainly on groundworks, and/or an elevated civic centre.
One of the audience mentioned yesterday about a highly skilled German structural engineer at VKE (Horst Wiessler - thanks to Frank Holmes for confirming this) who was later part of the scheme team. I wonder, how significant was that in the early 1960s? Was there a lack of structural expertise in Cape Town which this German engineer significantly added to? Transport planning at that time was in a period of growth, invention and expansion, partly thanks to developments in computing technology and the mass calculations made possible by that. Was this growing computer power significant in structural engineering too?
Any thoughts?
3 comments:
The engineer was Horst Wiessler and as far as I know he was Austrian. Your query about the lack of local structural engineers is perceptive; the sole lecturer in civil engineering until 1947 was Professor Snape, who was not a structural expert, so his students were not versed in advanced structures. Until the 1960's most grade separation bridges were little more than large culverts. VKE made their name by providing elegant slim trestle bridges on their first freeways, designed by Wiessler and Donaziecki(?)a Hungarian. At Shands the great structural influence was Szapiro, a Belgian. So it would seem that SA needed some foreign influence to get the local structural scene moving. By the mid 1960's Mills and Rautenbach at VKE, Chris Thompson at Shands and Liebenberg in his own right were designing world class structures, followed by a great many competent designers.
From Malan Shrecker, via my email:
There most definitely was no lack of structural expertise in Cape Town. Obviously, as in other branches of engineering, the advent of computers made more sophisticated calculations possible. Cape Town had ample competent bridge engineers. The person that Mr. Mills mentioned at the meeting was Mr. Wiessler - an excellent engineer. Both were working for consulting engineers VKE. There were several other bright bridge specialists that I was fortunate to work under during the early 70's, including Chris Thompson (Ninham Shand), Dr. Liebenberg, Volcke Trumpelmann, Mr. Gara (all Liebenberg & Stander). Other bridge design firms that were strongly established in Cape Town included Hawkins Hawkins and Osborne, Jeffares and Green - to mention only a few. The list is by no means complete.
Without doubt, there was a lot of structural talent and know-how.
The problem was partly due to no one single vision existing for the longterm planning of CT's road system. This was further complicated by politics and the fact that "liberal" CT City Council and Province/SA Central Government did not communicate or agree all that well.
Horst Wiessler was my father and remember the endless site visits to the Foreshore site before we went home. He was very proud of the part he played on the project and was frustrated that no one had the sense to push it through to completion. He was born in Wertheim, near Frankfurt, Germany and emigrated to South Africa in the 1950's.
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