Heinrich Müller-Breslau

Following service in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the young Müller, who a few years later was to change his name to Müller-Breslau, left the place of his birth to study at the Berlin Building Academy. However, the birth of a son in December 1872, who was also christened Heinrich (1872–1962), forced him to start earning money. He tutored his fellow students at the Building Academy in theory of structures in readiness for the dreaded state examination set by Schwedler, although he himself did not sit the examination. Müller-Breslau, however, turned duty into a virtue by publishing his theory of structures notes as a book in 1875 and setting himself up as an independent civil engineer. In October 1883 he was appointed assistant and lecturer at Hannover TH and in April 1885 professor of civil engineering at the same establishment before succeeding Emil Winkler in the chair of theory of structures, building and bridge design at Berlin TH in October 1888. Taking the theorems of Castigliano and Maxwell's frame theory as his starting point, Müller-Breslau worked out a consistent theory of statically indeterminate frames between 1883 and 1888 which, just a few years later, officially became the force method. Müller-Breslau's completion of classical theory of structures brought to a close the discipline-formation period of structural theory. During the 1880s, the dispute between Mohr and Müller-Breslau over the fundamentals of theory of structures led to the formation of the Dresden school of applied mechanics and the Berlin school of structural theory, which also gained international recognition. Müller-Breslau's appointment as a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1901 demonstrates the high status accorded to theory of structures and iron bridge-building – indeed engineering sciences on the whole – by Imperial Germany.

Source: Kurrer, Karl-Eugen The History of the Theory of Structures, Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH, Berlin (Deutschland), ISBN 3-433-01838-3, 2008; p. 848

Participation in the following structures & large-scale projects:

• Kaisersteg

• Great Tropical Green House
• Mediterranean Green House