Eduard Imhof

Eduard Imhof ( born January 25, 1895 in Schiers, † April 27, 1986 in Erlenbach ZH) was a Swiss cartographer.

Life

He was the founder of the Institute of Cartography at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, which he headed from 1925 to 1965. From 1960 to 1978 he headed the working group for the preparation of the Atlas of Switzerland. The Institute of Cartography, making it the world's oldest cartographic University Institute at all. Eduard Imhof school maps and atlases (among Swiss Mittelschulatlas ) were known far beyond the university also. Gained fame Imhof also by its very finely crafted scale models. In particular, here are the scale models of the Alpine peaks Bietschhorn (1939) and Gross Windgällen (1938 ) should be mentioned.

Imhof was also by his expedition to China in 1930, known by Arnold Heim and Paul Nabholz, as he surveyed the mountain Minya Konka with the expedition group. Not 10,000 meters, as rumors disclosures, but only 7590 meters above sea level, this was the result of the measurement. Thus, the Mount Everest was still the highest mountain in the world. In 1954 he climbed Mount Ararat. 1958 appointed him to the Swiss Alpine Club as an honorary member.

1961 to 1978 he was editor of the Atlas of Switzerland. The first edition appeared in 1978. In 1968 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina.

He was the first president of the International Cartographic Association.

In 1995, his birthday jährte for the 100th time. This was an occasion to remember him through exhibitions and his work, including Zurich, Bern, Bad Ragaz, Barcelona, Karlsruhe and Berlin. The last exhibition in this connection was held in the Prints and Drawings of ETH in the summer of 1997. There were particularly many of the maps and images are shown in the original. Following this exhibition Imhof original works of the ETH-Bibliothek Zurich were handed over by the family as a legacy.

Eduard Imhof was a citizen of the community in Fahrni Thun. The municipality Fahrni built in the years 1999/2000 on the highest point of the municipality ( 915 m asl) in a beautiful panoramic location, a memorial in honor of its famous citizen. From here you can enjoy an unparalleled panoramic view of the Alps across the Mittelland to the Jura mountains.

Works

• Terrain and map (1950 )
• Mapping relief (1965 )
• Unknown Turkey. Where East and West meet (1970 )
• Textbook of General Geography, Volume 10, Thematic Cartography (1972 ) ISBN 3-11-002122-6
• The Great Cold mountains of Szechuan (1974 )
• Sculptor of the mountains. A report on alpine mountain models ( 1981)