The author, who speaks French and Flemish and spent some of the
post-World War II years in Europe studying engineering, presents an
essay on the origins and development of prestressed concrete. Three
engineers are singled out for having had the most profound influence
on the development of prestressed concrete – Eugene Freyssinet,
Gustave Magnel, and Ulrich Finsterwalder. Unquestionably, it was
the painstaking pioneering work of Freyssinet that convinced the
engineering world of the viability of prestressed concrete as a
competitive construction material. Throughout Freyssinet’s life, there
is one theme that keeps recurring time and again, namely, “a
simplification of forms and an economy of means.” Magnel is noted
as a great teacher and for communicating his ideas on prestressing to
the English-speaking world. Finsterwalder pioneered the development
of the double cantilever method of bridge construction. Several
outstanding reinforced and prestressed concrete structures in the
Americas and Europe are discussed and illustrated. In retrospect, the
author regards the principle of prestressing as the single most
important new concept in structural engineering during the last half
of the twentieth century.