\"Tedesko Medal\" Anton Tedesko Signed 3X4 B&W Photo For Sale

Up for sale the "Tedesko Medal" Anton Tedesko Hand Signed 3X4 B&W Photo. 

ES-4797

Anton

Tedesko was born in Germany on May 25, 1903 and was raised in Graz and Vienna,

Austria. He graduated in 1926 from the Technical University of Vienna with a

Diploma in Structural Engineering. After working as an engineer for several

years in Europe and the United States, Tedesko joined the German firm of

Dyckerhoff and Widmann (D&W) in 1930. At D&W, Tedesko worked under the

great German engineers Franz Dischinger and Ulrich Finsterwalder who were

making rapid developments in the theory and construction of thin shell roofs.

Dischinger had been one of the designers for the pioneering Zeiss planetarium

hemispherical dome (1922) using a self-supporting geodesic system of

reinforcing gunnited with concrete. This dome gave rise to the patented

Zeiss-Dywidag (Z-D) system, which was later adapted for barrel roofs. In 1932

Tedesko was sent to the Chicago firm of Roberts and Schaefer (R&S) as a

representative of D&W and to promote the use of thin shell concrete roofs

of the Z-D system. The first shell of the Z-D system built in the United States

was Tedesko's design for the 1934 Hayden Planetarium dome in New York (81 ft

diameter, 3 in thick). The earliest barrel shell roof in the U.S. was Tedesko's

design for the Brook Hill Farm Dairy Barn at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair (36

ft span, 3 in thick). After the Fair, the shell was used for a full-scale,

instrumented load testing. Tedesko's design for the 1936 Hershey Arena roof in

Pennsylvania (222 ft span, 3.5 in thick) was the first short barrel shell in

the U.S. and represented a significant departure from German practice.  During

World War II and the years following, Tedesko designed a number of

long-spanning thin shell concrete roofs to serve as aircraft hangars. Tedesko's

longest spanning shell was the 340 ft span used for U.S. Air Force Hangars at

Rapid City, South Dakota and Limestone, Maine built in 1948. These shells were

only 5 in thick. In 1950 Tedesko introduced a second innovation-the ribless

shell-in a scale model test of 15 ft span and 1.5 in thickness at Harvey,

Illinois. The first full-scale ribless shell was completed in 1958 for an Air

Force warehouse in Olmstead, Pennsylvania (39 ft span, 3 in thick). Tedesko's

work reached beyond thin shell structures and includes the structural design of

NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. When

completed in 1966, the VAB enclosed the greatest total volume of any building

in the world. Tedesko even submitted a design for the new Williamsburg Bridge

in 1988 at the age of 84, in collaboration with his mentor Finsterwalder who

was then 90 years old. Tedesko was also known for his oral and written

communication skills and emphasized the importance of good communication in

engineering projects across all parties and disciplines involved. Anton Tedesko

introduced the thin shell concrete roof construction to the United States and

was responsible for the design of over 60 shells during his career. His

engineering design approach relied on a balance of theory, experience with

full-scale structures and close collaboration with contractors. Rather than

simply importing thin shell concrete designs from Europe, he developed new and

innovative designs to accommodate engineering and construction practices in the

United States. In 1998 the International Association for Bridge and Structural

Engineering (IABSE) Foundation created the Anton Tedesko Medal in his honor.

Anton Tedesko's personal writings are preserved in the Princeton Tedesko

Archive at Princeton University.