The news of the death of the civil engineer Jörg Schlaich, known for his filigree constructions, who died on Saturday at the age of 86, comes at an inopportune time. Or, maybe Schlaich, who was known as a humble and sovereign person, would put it this way: Somehow that is typical again. Maybe even typically Swabian. In any case, typically an engineer.
The term “inopportune” refers to the fact that the death of Jean-Paul Belmondo, 88 years old, has just been reported in the feature pages. And naturally – in view of the global glamor of the film star – takes the top positions. The typical relates precisely to the fact that Jörg Schlaich, who built countless bridges and towers, but also worked on the tent roof of the Munich Olympic Stadium, was often to be found in the second row. He didn’t feel uncomfortable there.
His credo: only something well and properly built can look really good
His engineering skill, which is cleverly thought out, boldly constructed and elegantly designed, has always been a kind of service for the work of other designers. True to his credo that only something well and properly built can look really good, the native Swabian, who was born in the Remstal in 1934 as the son of a Protestant parsonage, was usually the decisive co-author of a world-famous architecture.
The iconic Olympic roof, the names Fritz Auer, Günter Behnisch and Frei Otto are associated with it, would hardly have been possible without his participation. Schlaich also deserves that design fame that he has never asked for. With Gottfried Böhm, next to Otto also a German Pritzker Prize winner, Schlaich designed the Züblin House in Stuttgart as a glass cathedral of sustainability at a time when most engineers still had to look up sustainability in the lexicon.
Most recently, in the competition to rebuild the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in an act of terror twenty years ago, his name reappeared in the very important second row: as a co-author of the group “Think”. The Freedom Tower could not then be realized according to Schlaich’s plans. If you look today at what was built instead, you think: what a shame. A little more modesty in form and a little more constructive nobility would have done the project good.
As an engineer, Schlaich was a kind of pontiff of the earthly, which at the same time always braces itself towards heaven
That the cosmopolitan Schlaich built bridges not only of worlds, but also literally, is testimony to his fascinatingly light bridges all over the world. From the “Golden Gatele”, the suspension bridge over the Neckar, via Kiel, Duisburg to Calcutta (Hooghly Bridge): As an engineer, Schlaich was a kind of pontiff of the earthly, who at the same time always braced himself against the sky.
Incidentally, as is the “Schlaichturm”, an observation tower with a rope network construction that was built for the State Garden Show in Weil am Rhein. A little later, in 2001, the tower builder also built the 43 meter high Killesberg tower in Stuttgart. The construction, lightness is hardly a term for it, fits naturally, yes naturally, into the landscape. Schlaich has shown that human architecture and that of creation complement each other wonderfully. He also built this bridge.