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Othmar Ammann

1879–1965 · 86 years Tier II

The immigrant draftsman who beat his own mentor across the Hudson

Portrait of Othmar Ammann — Unknown author — 1932 — CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

A bridge fell down and made his career. Ammann grew up at Feuerthalen, near Schaffhausen, the son of a manufacturer and a hat maker, and took his engineering training at the Zürich Polytechnikum under Wilhelm Ritter. He emigrated in 1904 and went back the following year to marry Lilly Selma Wehrli, who bore him three children and died in 1933. In 1907 the Quebec Bridge collapsed, and the report Ammann wrote about the failure was the thing that got him noticed. It got him a place on Gustav Lindenthal's Hell Gate Bridge. He became an American citizen in 1924. By 1925 he was bridge engineer to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Lindenthal was about to become the man he beat.

He worked from deflection theory: if the span and the cables weigh enough on their own, the deck needs no stiffening trusses. That made his bridges thin, cheap, and in the Depression buildable. Lindenthal's North River Bridge would have carried 16 lanes, freight trains and rapid transit into Manhattan at 57th Street. Ammann's design was chosen over it, mainly on cost, and opened on October 25, 1931 as the George Washington Bridge, six months early and under its 60-million-dollar budget, its towers left as bare steel because the dressed stone meant to clothe them was cut. The Bayonne Bridge followed three weeks later, the one arch among his major spans. Robert Moses then drafted him, and the Triborough, the Bronx-Whitestone, the Throgs Neck and the Verrazzano-Narrows were all built for Moses's authority.

The idea that made his bridges cheap is the idea that nearly wrecked the profession. Slender decks without stiffening trusses move in wind, and the Bronx-Whitestone had to be reinforced after a single year of service because people could feel it. Eighteen months after that bridge opened, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge tore itself apart. Ammann was one of three engineers appointed to find out why, and the 1941 report he wrote with Theodore von Kármán and Glenn B. Woodruff set the rules for suspension design for the next half century. Warren trusses were bolted the length of his Whitestone to hold it still, ruining its line, and stayed for decades. His last bridge cost more than money. The Verrazzano's Brooklyn approach displaced some 7,500 people, and three men — Paul Bassett, Irving Rubin and Gerard McKee — died building it.

He died at home in Rye, New York, on September 22, 1965, ten months after the Verrazzano opened, and the record does not say of what. He had taken the National Medal of Science the year before. The memorials are small and oddly placed: a 1962 bronze bust in the George Washington Bridge Bus Station, a dormitory at Stony Brook dedicated in 1968, a plaque near the Verrazzano set down in 1979, a century after his birth. The bridge itself spent 58 years misspelled, because a construction contract dropped a z from the explorer's name, and New York restored it only by statute in 2018. Nobody says his name crossing any of them, which is roughly the bargain he made.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Othmar Ammann's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

George Washington Bridge building
Opened October 25, six months early and under a 60-million-dollar budget 1931
Bayonne Bridge building
The one arch among his major spans 1931
Triborough Bridge building
The first of four commissions for Robert Moses's authority 1936
The Failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge article
Written with Theodore von Kármán and Glenn B. Woodruff, and followed for 50 years 1941
Ammann and Whitney company
Founded with Charles Whitney 1946
Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge building
A 4,260-foot suspended span, then the longest in the world 1964

Life in brief

with age at each point

March 26, 1879 aged 0 Born at Feuerthalen, near Schaffhausen
1904 aged ~25 Emigrates to the United States He returned in 1905 to marry Lilly Selma Wehrli.
1907 aged ~28 Writes the report on the Quebec Bridge collapse that makes his name It got him a place on Gustav Lindenthal's Hell Gate Bridge.
1925 aged ~46 Appointed bridge engineer to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey His Hudson crossing was chosen over Lindenthal's much larger North River Bridge, mainly on cost.
October 25, 1931 aged 52 The George Washington Bridge opens
April 29, 1939 aged 60 The Bronx-Whitestone opens, and is reinforced within a year People could feel the deck move in wind.
1941 aged ~62 Co-authors the report explaining the Tacoma Narrows collapse
November 21, 1964 aged 85 The Verrazzano-Narrows opens with the world's longest suspended span He was 85. Three workers had died building it.
September 22, 1965 aged 86 Dies at his home in Rye, New York