WIKIPEDIA

Johann Wilhelm Schwedler (23 June 1823, Berlin – 9 June 1894, Berlin) was a German civil
engineer and civil servant who designed many bridges and public buildings and invented the
Schwedler truss and the Schwedler cupola.

Life and career

Schwedler was the son of a cabinetmaker who died when he was still in school; his brother, already
a construction supervisor, made it possible for him to finish his education at the City Trade School in
1842.[1]After a further required examination in Latin to complete the equivalent of a lower-
level Gymnasiumeducation, he spent the next ten years training as a surveyor, studying for
examinations in that and in road construction, studying for a year at the Berlin Academy of
Construction, and completing the examinations to be a certified building inspector and construction
supervisor. One of his practical examinations was waived after he won the international competition
to design a road and rail bridge across the Rhine between Cologne and Deutz.[2] He was then
required to leave on his Wanderjahre as a journeyman; he did so with his new wife, the daughter of
a teacher and organist in Buckow, whom he had met through their shared love of music and become
engaged to six years before.[3]
Schwedler began publishing in engineering before he completed his training, beginning with Über
die statischen Prinzipien der Konstruktion eiserner Dachgebinde über weite Räume und die
Entwicklung der Konstruktionssysteme aus demselben (1846). His "Theorie der
Brückenbalkensysteme", published in the first year of the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen (1851), had a
revolutionary impact on the construction of steel bridges.[4] But during his journeyman years he did
not publish, concentrating instead on building. The City of Cologne employed him to build a stone
bridge over the Sieg. He then supervised the first stage of construction of the railway between
Cologne and Gießen. In 1848, Barmen, now part of Wuppertal, invited him to become its
superintendent of construction, but he instead with some reluctance returned to Berlin to take a post
in the Division of Construction of the Prussian Ministry of Trade.[3]
He spent the remainder of his career as a civil servant, becoming chief engineer for the Royal
Prussian Railways and during a period of rapid expansion: between 1860 and 1890 the Prussian
railway system grew from less than 5,800 km of rails to more than 26,300 km, from approximately
600 stations to 4,200, and numerous rivers and valleys were bridged for both railways and
roads.[5] During that time he oversaw in some manner every major piece of construction in Prussia
and subsequently the German Empire.[6] In 1868 he was promoted to Geheimer Baurat and became
the highest ranking construction employee in the Prussian Civil Service. He also returned to
publishing, developing with Friedrich August von Pauli, Johann Caspar Harkort, and Heinrich
Gottfried Gerber a complete theory and praxis of steel construction;[7] his Theorie der Brückenbalken-
Systeme, volume 1 (1862)[8] and Resultate über die Konstruktion der eisernen Brücken (1865)[7] were
particularly influential. Shortly after his return to Berlin, he became an instructor at the Academy of
Construction, and after 1864 he was an examiner there; his teaching greatly improved the training in
the field.[9] He was on the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen for many years.
Schwedler had three daughters and a son; however, his youngest daughter and his son died in 1863
and 1864, and his wife in 1867 after a long decline.[9] He remarried, but his second wife died in 1892.
In 1891, he had had to retire because of poor health; 3,500 fellow engineers signed a farewell
testament praising his accomplishments. He died in 1894 after being housebound for several
years.[10]

Bridge at Unterreichenbach on the Nagold Valley Railway, one of the last remaining Schwedler truss bridges
Works
Among Schwedler's memorable engineering feats were the design of a swinging bridge which was
still in use half a century later;[11] the design for the new prayer hall of the Deutscher Dom;[12] and a
simple solution to the problem of raising the cast iron Prussian National Monument for the Liberation
Wars on the Kreuzberg hill in Berlin while turning it 21°.[13

Schwedler truss
Schwedler invented the Schwedler truss, which was widely used worldwide in framed bridges and
roofs until about 1900. It is a kind of curved chord or bowstring truss with the minimum number of
diagonals, which are to bear only tension, not compression; it requires a slight downward curvature
in the middle, usually replaced with extra diagonal bracing for appearance and cost
saving.[14][15] Schwedler himself would have preferred it to be used less on aesthetic grounds.[7] His
first use of the innovation was for the railway bridge over the Weser at Corvey, on the edge
of Höxter (1864),[7][16] for which he won a gold medal at the 1867 Paris International
Exposition.[7][17] One of the last remaining examples is the bridge carrying the Nagold Valley
Railway over the Nagold in Unterreichenbach.[18]

Johann Wilhelm Schwedler

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