Biographical Information
| Name: | Walter Bird |
|---|---|
| Born on | 18 November 1912 in Oak Park, Cook County, Illinois, USA, North America |
| Deceased on | 6 April 2006 in Sarasota, Sarasota County, Florida, USA, North America |
| Place(s) of activity: | |
| 1934 | Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. |
| 1935 | Employed at Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Co. designing streamlined railroad cars. |
| 1936 | Returns to MIT for a year's graduate work in business and engineering administration under a Sloan Foundation Fellowship. |
| 1939 | Employed at Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division in Buffalo, New York as a project stress engineer on the P-40 Warhawk aircraft. |
| 1943 | Head of Curtiss-Wright's Research Laboratory, later renamed the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL). |
| 1946 | Begins specialized research and development work on air-supported (inflatable) structures at CAL's new Development Division in Buffalo. |
| 1955 | Founds his own company, Birdair. |
| Beginning of the 1980s | Guest lecturer at the University of Buffalo's Department of Architecture. |
| 1981 | Retires from Birdair, Inc. as president of the company. |
Structures and Projects
Participation in the following structures & large-scale projects:
- Haj Terminal, King Abdul Aziz International Airport
- Le Radôme
- Leavey Center
- Steve Lacy Field House
- US Pavilion (Expo '70)
- Pontiac Silverdome - Birdair, Inc.
Relevant Publications
- (1997): L'art de l'ingénieur. constructeur, entrepeneur, inventeur. Éditions du Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (France), pp. 84.
- (1996): Engineering A New Architecture. Academy Editions, London (United Kingdom), pp. 10, 13.
- (1996): Light Structures - Structures of Light. The art and engineering of tensile architecture. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel (Switzerland), pp. 14-15, 77-91.
- About this
data sheet - Person-ID
1000242 - Published on:
22/08/1999 - Last updated on:
22/07/2014
