FRITZ LEONHARDT

1909–1999

BY BEN GERWICK

FRITZ LEONHARDT, professor and former rector (president) of Stuttgart University, Germany, died on December 30, 1999. He was born in Stuttgart and received his university education at Stuttgart University. He carried on graduate studies at Purdue University in 1932 and 1933, returning to Stuttgart University to obtain his doctorate of engineering in 1938.

In 1939, after his collaboration with Wolfhart Andra, in the successful design of Europe's largest suspension bridge across the Rhine at Cologne, he formed the partnership of Leonhardt Andra and Partners, which became one of the world's best-known designers of major bridges.

Fritz Leonhardt was an active supporter of the major professional structural and concrete engineering organizations in Europe and later, internationally, including the Federation Internationale de la Precontrainte and the International Association for Bridges and Structural Engineering.

He and his firm were always at the forefront of pioneering developments in bridges; from development of a new system for prestressed concrete in 1949 to aerodynamically stabilized suspension bridges as early as 1953, orthotropic steel decks, composite steel and concrete high-speed railroad bridges, and cable-stayed bridges. Although his first love was bridges, he also pioneered the family of prestressed concrete television towers, beginning in 1953 with the famous Stuttgart Tower, which became