Arup, Sir Ove

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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b. 16 April 1895 Newcastle upon Tyne, England

d. 5 February 1988 Highgate, London, England

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English consultant engineer.

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Of Scandinavian parentage, Arup attended school in Germany and Denmark before taking his degree in mathematics and philosophy at Copenhagen University in 1914. He then graduated as a civil engineer from the Royal Technical College in the same city, specializing in the theory of structures.

Arup retained close ties with Europe for some time, working in Hamburg as a designer for the Danish civil engineering firm of Christiani \& Nielsen. Then, in the 1930s, he began what was to be a long career in England as an engineering consultant to a number of architects who were beginning to build with modern materials (par-ticularly concrete) and methods of construction. He became consultant to the famous firm of Tecton (under the direction of Berthold Lubetkin) and was closely associated with the leading projects of that firm at the time, notably the High-point flats at Highgate, the Finsbury Health Centre and the award-winning Penguin Pool at the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, all in London.

In 1945 Arup founded his own firm, Ove Arup \& Partners, working entirely as a consultant to architects, particularly on structural schemes, and in 1963 he set up a partnership of architects and engineers, Arup Associates. The many and varied projects with which he was concerned included Coventry Cathedral and the University of Sussex with Sir Basil Spence, the Sydney Opera House with Joern Utzon and St Catherine's College, Oxford, with Arne Jacobsen.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

CBE 1953. Commander of the Order of Danneborg, awarded by King Frederik of Denmark, 1975. Honorary Doctorate Tekniske Hojskole, Lyngby, Denmark 1954. Honorary DSc Durham University 1967, University of East Anglia 1968, Heriot-Watt University 1976. RIBA Gold Medal 1966. Institution of Structural Engineers Gold Medal 1973. Fellow of the American Concrete Institution 1975.

Further Reading

J.M.Richards, 1953, An Introduction to Modern Architecture, London: Penguin. H.Russell-Hitchcock, 1982, Architecture, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, London: Pelican.

C.Jencks, 1980, Late-Modern Architecture, London: Academy Editions.

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