Stefan Bryła

Stefan Bryła

Stefan Bryła (born 17 August 1886 in Kraków – 3 December 1943 in Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish construction engineer and welding pioneer.^[1] Bryła designed and built the first welded road bridge in the world.

Biography

Bryła was a Professor at the Lwów University of Technology from 1927 and at the Warsaw University of Technology from 1934. Bryła was the author of basic methods of welding steel structures.

In 1927 he designed the Maurzyce Bridge, first welded road bridge in the world. The bridge was erected across the Słudwia River in Maurzyce near Łowicz, Poland in 1929. It was still in use in 1977 as which point plans were undertaken to replace it with a wider structure. Consequently, the bridge was reinstalled as a historical monument at a site slightly upstream. In 1995, the American Welding Society presented a Historic Welded Structure Award for the bridge to Poland.^[2] He also designed high rise buildings: Drapacz Chmur in Katowice and the Prudential in Warsaw in 1932.

During World War II he taught at the Secret Universities. Secret teaching was the cause of arrest of Stefan Bryła. He was arrested on 16 November 1943 together with his family and murdered during Action AB by the Germans in Warsaw on 3 December 1943.

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