Maurice Koechlin
Maurice Koechlin ( born March 8, 1856 in Bühl / Buhl, Alsace, † January 14, 1946 in Veytaux, Switzerland ) was a Swiss- French engineer.
Life
Maurice Koechlin was born the son of Frédérique Koechlin, who ran a mill. The family Koechlin was a respected major civil and industrial family whose various members lived in the Alsatian North swiss space and also political responsibility took over: Several mayor of Mulhouse in the 19th century came from this family.
In Mulhouse, he attended the Lycée and then enrolled to study at the still young Federal Institute of Technology ( ETH) - at that time still under the name Polytechnic - in Zurich for a degree in engineering sciences. There he met the professor Karl Culmann contributed greatly to shaping his future career as an engineer.
In 1877 he graduated as valedictorian and entered as an engineer in the railway company Chemin de Fer de l' Est. Two years later he moved to the office of Gustave Eiffel, where he became a senior engineer. One of the first works was the staff at the Maria Pia Bridge, a steel truss arch bridge over the Douro, which had been designed by Théophile Seyrig, the former partner of Eiffel.
Following the same principle, but technically refined the Garabit Viaduct, which should allow for a rail link to the south of France, was planned by Koechlin and executed by Eiffel's company ( 1879-1884 ). The viaduct via a 120 meter deep gorge Truyère in the Auvergne.
Little known is that the company Eiffel and Koechlin was so involved in the Statue of Liberty sculptor Frederic- Auguste Bartholdi: the supporting substructure was designed by Koechlin ( 1881-1886 ).
The most important project, however, should be the Eiffel Tower, the construction idea and static calculations of Koechlin came, but as Eiffel 's contribution to the 1889 World's Fair presented the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Without Koechlin were it not for these Eiffel Tower.
As Eiffel in 1893 retired from the company, Koechlin continued the business until 1940 on. The last few years he retired to his home in Veytaux on Lake Geneva, where he died at the age of 90 years.
Maurice Koechlin was an officer of the French Legion of Honour.