Béla Gerster

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The birth-place of Béla Gerster at Hlavná Street in Košice, Slovakia

The memorial plate of Béla Gerster in his birth-place

Béla Gerster or Vojtech Gerster (* October 20, 1850 in Kassa (today Slovakia (Košice) - † August 3, 1923 in Budapest) was a notable engineer and canal architect. He took part in an early expedition to investigate a route for the Panama Canal, and was the chief engineer of the Corinth Canal.^[1]

Béla Gerster graduated from the Vienna University of Technology and he also started his profession in this city as a civil engineer. He was a respected expert on water constructions. He accompanied Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps and István Türr in an early international expedition in 1876 with the task to locate the most suitable route of an interoceanic canal. He proposed an area between Panama and Colón.

After István Türr was granted permission by the Greek government to continue the long abandoned works of the cutting through of the Corinthian Isthmus (it was Emperor Nero who first attempted this in 68 AC.), Gerster was given charge over making the plans in 1881. Afterwards he supervised the whole project as the first engineer of the canal building company; his co-workers in this endeavour were another four Hungarian engineers: István Kauser, László Nyári, Garibaldi Pulszky and István Stéghmüller. The construction lasted for 11 years (1882-1893). The Corinth Canal is 6,343 metres long; its width amounts to 25 metres, its depth 8 metres and the earth cliffs flanking it reach a maximum height of 63 metres. Gerster wrote about his experiences in his Hungarian-French bilingual book "A korinthusi földszoros és átmetszése" / "Cutting through the Corinthian Isthmos". This book features a lot of photographs, construction drawings and maps. He also laid out a railway line from Athens to Larisa.

He participated in the development of István Türr's monumental plans of water-supply engineering in Hungary. Later on he conducted the designing, construction and building of 13 major railway lines in Hungary. Lastly, in 1919 he administered the works at the Duna-Tisza Canal.