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Ove Arup

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Sir Ove Nyquist Arup, CBE, MICE, MIStructE, FCIOB (16 April 1895 – 5 February 1988) was an English engineer who founded Arup Group Limited, a multinational corporation offering engineering, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for building systems.[1] Ove Arup is considered to be among the foremost architectural structural engineers of his time.

Sir
Ove Arup
CBE
Born(1895-04-16)16 April 1895
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Died5 February 1988(1988-02-05) (aged 92)
London, England
NationalityEnglish
CitizenshipBritish
EducationSorø Academy
University of Copenhagen
Polyteknisk Læreanstalt
OccupationEngineer
SpouseRuth Sørensen
Engineering career
DisciplineStructural engineer
InstitutionsInstitution of Structural Engineers
Practice nameArup
ProjectsSydney Opera House
Centre Pompidou
Kingsgate Bridge
Highpoint I
Labworth Café
AwardsIStructE Gold Medal
RIBA Gold Medal

Personal life and education

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Arup was born in Newcastle, England, in 1895,[2] to the Danish veterinary surgeon Jens Simon Johannes Arup and his Norwegian wife, Mathilde Bolette Nyquist.

Arup attended the Sorø Academy in Denmark, a boarding school influenced by Thomas Arnold of Rugby School in the United Kingdom.

In 1913, he began studying philosophy at the University of Copenhagen and in 1918 enrolled in an engineering degree at the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen,[3] specializing in reinforced concrete. He completed his studies in 1922. At this time, Ove Arup was influenced by Le Corbusier and his publication Vers une architecture, published that year, as well as by Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus movement.[citation needed]

Arup married Ruth Sørensen, known as Li, on 13 August 1925.[4]

Working life

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Before WWII

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In 1922, Ove Arup began working with the Danish firm Christiani & Nielsen in Hamburg, and in December 1923, he moved to their London office as chief engineer.[5]

He designed the Labworth Café—a café with two integrated shelters located on the promenade of the Essex seaside resort of Canvey Island. The café remains the only building solely designed by Arup.[6]

Arup then worked as a structural consultant for the Tecton partnership, notably on the Penguin Pool at London's Regent's Park Zoo,[7] as well as on projects at Whipsnade Zoo, Dudley Zoo, a villa in Heath Drive, Romford, Essex, and Highpoint I in Highgate—a building he later criticized. The close working relationship that Arup developed with Tecton's senior partner Berthold Lubetkin proved highly significant in advancing both men's careers.[5]

He subsequently joined the London construction company J. L. Kier & Co. as director and chief designer from 1934 to 1938. During the 1930s, Arup also collaborated with notable architects such as Ernő Goldfinger, Wells Coates, Maxwell Fry, Yorke, Rosenberg & Mardall, and Marcel Breuer.[5]

In 1935, he became a member of the executive committee of the MARS Group. In 1938, he and his cousin Arne founded Arup & Arup Limited, a firm of engineers and contractors.[5]

World War II

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A pair of Phoenix breakwaters at Portland Harbour

Before World War II, Ove Arup was a member of the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) organising committee, where he advised Finsbury Council on the provision of bomb shelters. During the war, he published several papers on shelter policy and designs, advocating for reinforced concrete mass shelters as opposed to the government’s policy of dispersing the population in small domestic shelters. However, most of his recommendations were not adopted due to political reasons, though some affluent Londoners were able to build concrete shelters based on his designs.

Arup played a significant role in the design of the Mulberry temporary harbours used during the D-Day landings.[5] The Mulberry Harbour was a type of temporary harbour developed to offload cargo on the beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy. The sections for two prefabricated or artificial military harbours were transported with the invading army from Britain across the English Channel and assembled off the coast of Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion of France in 1944.

Arup & Partners

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Arup led the engineering design of the Sydney Opera House and made its construction possible.

In 1946, after dissolving Arup & Arup Ltd, Ove Arup created a team of civil and structural engineering consultants. In the same year, he formed his first partnership with Ronald Jenkins, Geoffrey Wood, and Andrew Young, called Arup and Partners.

In 1963, a further company, Arup Associates,[8] was formed as a new partnership. This body included architects and engineers working on an equal basis as building designers, including the engineer Ove Arup, the architects Francis Pym and Philip Dowson, and the former partners of Arup and Partners. It was a multidisciplinary company providing engineering, architectural, and other services for the built environment. Arup himself noted that ultimately, all of the Arup entities resulted in a firm known simply as Arup.[5]

Notable projects

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Highpoint I

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Highpoint I, built in 1935, was an important experiment in high-rise residential design and one of Arup's most significant collaborations with Berthold Lubetkin. However, Arup later criticized the project, noting that it had significant flaws.[1]

Kingsgate Bridge

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Kingsgate Bridge as seen from the Durham Students' Union, with Durham Cathedral above

Ove Arup personally supervised the design and construction of Durham's Kingsgate Bridge in 1963. As the firm's first bridge project, Arup held a particular attachment to it, and after his death, his ashes were scattered from the bridge. A bust of Arup, placed at one end of the bridge, was stolen in the summer of 2006 but has since been replaced.[2] Kingsgate Bridge was the last structure designed by Arup.[9]

Van Ginkel Footbridge

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The mid-century Van Ginkel Footbridge is located in Bowring Park, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is a cantilever bridge, meaning it is anchored to the ground on one end, while the other end extends outward, unsupported. The bridge was granted heritage designation in 2020.[10] The architect of the bridge was Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, who received the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Gold Medal for lifetime achievement.[10]

Sydney Opera House

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Arup served as the design engineer for the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, from the project's inception in 1957 until its completion in 1973.[3] This iconic building, which made groundbreaking use of precast concrete, structural glue, and computer analysis,[11] significantly bolstered Arup's reputation, as well as that of his firm, despite the extremely challenging working relationship with the architect, Jørn Utzon.

Honours

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b Jones, 2006.
  2. ^ a b "World-renowned engineer Sir Ove Arup honoured with unveiling of new bust – Durham University". Dur.ac.uk. 28 September 2011. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  3. ^ a b Christina M. Zweig. "Ove Nyquist Arup: The engineering masterbuilder | civil + structural ENGINEER". Cenews.com. Archived from the original on 9 April 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  4. ^ Jones, 2006. (p. 44).
  5. ^ a b c d e f Jones, 2006. (p. 31).
  6. ^ "...the Labworth Café, the only building designed by the distinguished engineer Ove Arup." (Bettley, 2008). "...one of the only architectural designs by Ove Arup" (English Heritage, 2007).
  7. ^ Glynn, 1998–2006.
  8. ^ Brawne, 1983.
  9. ^ Steele, Matthew (12 November 2020). "Concrete jungle: The brutalist buildings of northern England – in pictures". The Guardian.
  10. ^ a b "Bowring Park bridge gets heritage status, as St. John's looks for revitalization cash". CBC.ca. 14 April 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  11. ^ "Ove Arup: Engineering at the Heart of Design". 14 June 2016.
  12. ^ "No. 39732". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1953. p. 10.
  13. ^ "No. 45423". The London Gazette. 13 July 1971. p. 7501.
  14. ^ "Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh: Honorary Graduates". www1.hw.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2016.

References

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Further reading

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