Povl Ahm

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FICE

FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and Scholarship, fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK a ...

(26 September 1926 – 15 May 2005) was a

structural engineer Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic ...

and former chairman of

Ove Arup & Partners Arup (officially Arup Group Limited) is a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London which provides design, engineering, architecture, planning, and advisory services across every aspect of the built environment ...

Life

Born in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...

, Denmark, Ahm attended the

Polyteknisk Læreanstalt The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fi ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, from where he graduated in 1949. Ahm married Birgit Moller in 1953, with whom he had two sons, Carsten Ahm and Peter Ahm. He was a keen sportsman, and a good footballer. He played for the London amateur team Corinthian-Casuals and played in the 1956 Amateur Cup Final at

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...

. He died of cancer on 15 May 2005.

Career

Castro Pretorio - Osborne House ambasciata GB s Sede 051218-01

He joined the firm Ove Arup and Partners in London in 1952, where he worked on

Coventry Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Saint Michael, commonly known as Coventry Cathedral, is the seat of the Bishop of Coventry and the Diocese of Coventry within the Church of England. The cathedral is located in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The curren ...

with

Basil Spence Sir Basil Urwin Spence, (13 August 1907 – 19 November 1976) was a Scottish architect, most notably associated with Coventry Cathedral in England and the Beehive in New Zealand, but also responsible for numerous other buildings in the Moderni ...

. In his own words: :"It was an architectural concept showing clearly the ecclesiastical functions but without any clear definition of structural concept, for so far no engineer had been involved in the design." Ahm was given great responsibility on this project, working directly with

Ove Arup 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 that offers engineering, design, planning, project management, and ...

.Arup website
Povi Ahm
Times Online Obituary
4 June 2005 He also worked on early conceptual design schemes for the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

, and worked on other projects, including

Smithfield Market Smithfield, properly known as West Smithfield, is a district located in Central London, part of Farringdon Without, the most westerly ward of the City of London, England. Smithfield is home to a number of City institutions, such as St Bartho ...

, London and

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, Paris – some of Ove Arup & Partners' most prestigious projects. The architect of Sydney Opera House,

Jørn Utzon Jørn Oberg Utzon, , Hon. FAIA (; 9 April 191829 November 2008) was a Danish architect. He was most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia, completed in 1973. When it was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, Utzo ...

, later went on to design a house for Ahm in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

- a project which avoided the many problems of Sydney Opera House. In 1957 Ahm was made an associate partner of

, and in 1965 he was made a full partner, becoming a director of the firm after its ownership was rearranged in 1977 (the firm was now owned in trust for the staff). By winning the competition to design the Gateshead Viaduct in 1965, Ahm started the firm's new transport group, specialising in bridges. From 1989 to 1992 he was chairman of the firm. He was made a Fellow of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

in 1981. Ahm was an active member of the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

, acting as a Council Member twice, and becoming Vice Chairman of Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief from 1989 to 1993. From 1992 to 1996 he was chairman of the

Association of Consulting Engineers The Association of Consulting Engineers New Zealand (ACENZ) is New Zealand's main business association representing engineers providing consultancy services in a wide range of disciplines. It was founded in 1959 as the consulting division of IPENZ, ...

Notable projects

, *

St Catherine's College, Oxford St Catherine's College (colloquially called St Catz or Catz) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford and is the newest college admitting both undergraduate and graduate students. Tracing its roots back to 1868 (although th ...

, 1960 *

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

, 1962 * 44 West Common Way (Ahm House), Harpenden, Hertfordshire, 1963 * Gateshead Viaduct, 1965 *

, 1974 *British Embassy in Rome, 1975 *Danish Embassy in London, 1978

Awards

Ahm was awarded the ICE's first gold medal in 1993; the same year he received a

for services to engineering. He received an honorary doctorate from

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

in 1994.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahm, Povl Danish civil engineers Corinthian-Casuals F.C. players Structural engineers 1926 births 2005 deaths Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Association footballers not categorized by position Danish men's footballers Footballers from Aarhus 20th-century Danish engineers