PAUL WEIDLINGER - Wellfleet, MA, USA
PAUL WEIDLINGER - Wellfleet, MA, USA
DESCRIPTION
“Paul Weidlinger was born in Budapest, Hungary on December 22, 1914. He was educated at the Technical Institute in Brno, Czechoslovakia and at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute. Following graduation in 1937 he apprenticed with both Moholy-Nagy and Le Corbusier. He left Europe in 1939 to work and teach in La Paz, Bolivia. He arrived in the United States in 1943 and started his own practice five years later.
Recognized as an innovative structural engineer, he attracted the attention of many major architects of the twentieth century. Some of his projects include Yale’s Beinecke Library Gordon Bunshaft, the hyperbolic-faced St. Francis de Sales church in Michigan with his close friend, Marcel Breuer and the Reader’s Digest Building in Tokyo with Antonin Raymond, He also collaborated with artists such as Picasso, Dubuffet and Noguchi on large outdoor sculptures.
His interest in the dynamic response of structures led to his revolutionary work on blast and earthquake proofing of buildings. He served as special consultant to the US State Department in the design of embassies, and his firm was the first approached to analyze the structural failure of the World Trade Center after 9/11.
He first came to Wellfleet at the invitation of Breuer, who persuaded him to buy land from Jack Phillips near Breuer’s house. It is documented that Breuer, Gropius and Le Corbusier all gave him advice on the design of his summer house. Le Corbusier reportedly opined, 'don’t pave the driveway.' Paul Weidlinger died in 1999, still pushing the boundaries of engineering.” Cape Cod Modern House Trust
RECOGNITION
Paul Weidlinger was an adjunct professor at MIT and Harvard University, and was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of ASCE and ACI. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Frank P. Brown Medal of the Franklin Institute, the Ernest E. Howard Award, Moissieff Award, the J. James R. Croes Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Engineering News Record Construction Industry Award. He also published extensively on structural engineering, the effects of nuclear and conventional weapons on structures and applied mechanics.
