Wacław Zalewski

Wacław Piotr Zalewski (born 25 August 1917 in Zhytomyr in Ukraine ) - Polish construction engineer and designer, creator of innovative buildings such as Spodek in Katowice, unique "Supersam" in Warsaw from the roof of the structure funikularnej, or train station in Katowice. Professor Emeritus of Structural Design at MIT. Hid greatest glory achieved in Poland was reached in working in the Office for the Study and Design of Industrial Building Types "BISTYP" in Warsaw

Biographical

He was born in 1917 to a Polish family settled in Zhytomyr since the seventeenth century. He took part in the Warsaw Uprising in Czerniaków. Went to Tadeusz Czacki High School in Warsaw, where he was in the same graduating class as the poet priest Jan Twardowski.

In 1947 he graduated from Warsaw University of Technology, which he began before the war, eventually graduating Gdańsk University of Technology. He has designed a whole range of new industrial construction. He was repeatedly sent to foreign conferences within the so-called communist - owski " the proclamation of Polish technical thought ." In 1962 he earned a Ph.D. at the Technical University of Warsaw. In the years 1962-1966 he was in Venezuela at the Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida 1962 to 1963 in Venezuela as a Visiting Professor, and later worked as a consultant for the Ministry of Public Works in Caracas . He designed a number of innovative structures, including buildings of hanging roofs and structures funikularne .

For many years, living in the United States. In 1965 he was invited as a professor ( full, tenured professor ) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked full-time until 1988, when he retired. Since that time, is a professor emeritus of architecture. He is considered one of the pioneers of the techniques of linear- rod on the principle of tensegrity structures in light canopies without the use of load-bearing columns. He wrote a book Shaping Structures. Among others streams forces introduced as a method for the calculation of the structure. Is known for fast calculation skills in memory, which he, at times, presented at shows at MIT.

In 1998 he received an honorary doctorate from Warsaw University of Technology from the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Civil Engineering .

The exhibition "Shaping Structures" shown at MIT, supplemented by the Polish exhibits such as a model Supersam of plywood and boards, was also shown in Poland at the Technical University of Łódź, then in Warsaw in the Association of Polish Architects in Foksal, then Gdańsk University of Technology, and Wrocław University of Technology.

Projects

Architect/Engineer

Structural Engineering

Engineer

Westplatte - Monument to the Coast Defenders

Bibliography

References

    External links