Hannskarl Bandel (May 3, 1925

Dessau, Germany Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the '' Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßlau ...

– December 29, 1993

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Moun ...

, United States), was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

structural engineer.

Early life

Hannskarl Bandel's father was an architect who owned a construction firm, and his mother came from the Brechtel family, which owned the well-known German construction company of the same name, founded in 1883 by Johannes Brechtel. This may have been a contributing factor in his choice of profession and study: he took a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

in engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. After working in the German

steel industry Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant t ...

, he came to the United States after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

with no money and two suitcases full of books, hoping to build suspension bridges. Three years after joining the New York firm of engineer Fred Severud, he was made a full partner.

Major works

With Severud, he made crucial, creative structural contributions to important mid-century architectural projects such as: * the cylindrical towers and theater roof at

Marina City Marina City is a mixed-use residential-commercial building complex in Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America, designed by architect Bertrand Goldberg. The multi-building complex opened between 1963 and 1967 and occupies almost an entir ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

* the

Toronto City Hall The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Viljo Revell and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened i ...

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

Headquarters in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

(the jungle building) * the cable-suspension system for the roof of Madison Square Garden in

* the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...

Crystal Cathedral Christ Cathedral (Latin: ''Cathedralis Christi''; Spanish: ''Catedral de Cristo''; Vietnamese: ''Nhà Thờ Chính Tòa Chúa Kitô''), formerly and informally known as the Crystal Cathedral, is an American church building of the Diocese of Or ...

in Garden Grove, California * the

Sunshine Skyway Bridge The Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge, often referred to as the Sunshine Skyway Bridge or the Sunshine Skyway, consists of a pair of long beam bridges with a central cable-stayed bridge that spans Lower Tampa Bay to connect St. Petersburg, ...

in St. Petersburg, Florida (demolished)

Other work

It was Bandel who modified the

catenary arch A catenary arch is a type of architectural arch that follows an inverted catenary curve. The catenary curve has been employed in buildings since ancient times. It forms an underlying principle to the overall system of vaults and buttresses i ...

shape for

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

Gateway Arch The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources consider ...

project. When Saarinen tried to demonstrate his desired shape with a chain suspended in his hands, he couldn't achieve the slightly elongated, "soaring" effect he wanted; Bandel asked for the chain, came back in a few days, and delighted the architect by producing Saarinen's curve, as if by magic. Bandel had replaced some of the constant-sized links with variable links, thus changing the weight, the distribution of the weight, and the shape. While working on the design Bandel also factored in the loads upon the 630 foot arch caused by the wind and worked out that if he added more weight to the first 300 feet of the arch and placed 25,980 tons of concrete in the arch's foundation the center of gravity would be lowered to a stable location. In 1978, he was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

. After Fred Severud's retirement, the firm, despite Bandel's objections, was bought by a Hungarian engineer. Bandel left the firm and became the senior vice-president of DRC Consultants, working on cable-stayed bridges and various other structures. He was offered the chair of structural engineering at the

University of Graz The University of Graz (german: link=no, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, ), located in Graz, Austria, is the largest and oldest university in Styria, as well as the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria. History The univers ...

, Austria, in 1980, but turned down the offer, saying that his challenging assignments in America were more important to him than a prestigious professorship in Europe. When the current Sunshine Skyway Bridge was constructed, Bandel was in charge of providing the construction engineering, planning, and management for the project. This bridge was constructed using pre-stressed concrete, which not only served as the roadway but as the structural support for the bridge, and featured a single span of supporting cables which incorporated his work in cable stayed bridge systems.Tedesko, A. (1996). Hannskarl Bandel. National Academy of Engineering, 16–19. Bandel was also an expert on creative structural renovation and retrofitting. According to Benjamin Horace Weese, Bandel personally saved the deteriorating

Guastavino tile The Guastavino tile arch system is a version of Catalan vault introduced to the United States in 1885 by Spanish architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). It was patented in the United States by Guastavino in 1892. Description ...

dome at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine by

in 1972 by recommending that its supporting

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

piers be insulated. In later years Bandel produced an innovative study for three-dimensional trusses to be assembled without tools in

zero gravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight. It is also termed zero gravity, zero G-force, or zero-G. Weight is a measurement of the force on an object at rest in a relatively strong gravitational f ...

, for the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

Mars Pathfinder ''Mars Pathfinder'' (''MESUR Pathfinder'') is an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight, wheeled robot ...

project.

Death

Bandel died of heart failure while

skiing Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...

at Aspen Highlands in

In popular culture

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in '' 127 Hours'' (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's ''Spider-M ...

's character in the 2008 movie ''

Pineapple Express Pineapple Express is a non-technical term for a meteorological phenomenon characterized by a strong and persistent large-scale flow of warm moist air, and the associated heavy precipitation both in the waters immediately northeast of the Hawaii ...

'' refers to Hannskarl when discussing his favorite civil engineers. In

Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel '' The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Pr ...

's ''

The Twenty-Seventh City ''The Twenty-Seventh City'' is Jonathan Franzen's debut novel, published in 1988. A complex, partly satirical thriller that studies a family unraveling under intense pressure, the novel is set amidst intricate political conspiracy and financial u ...

'' protagonist Martin Probst clearly refers to Bandel as constructor of the

and puts him in the middle of a political conspiracy that finally unravels both, his professional life and his family.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bandel, Hannskarl 1925 births 1993 deaths German emigrants to the United States Structural engineers German civil engineers American civil engineers 20th-century American engineers People from Dessau-Roßlau Engineers from Saxony-Anhalt