Werner Lorenz (historian)

The early buildings made of iron and steel have largely determined Werner Lorenz's work as a researcher and engineer. In addition, he also devoted himself to numerous other subject areas of engineering construction and the associated context from antiquity to modern times. In 2019, the German Research Foundation appointed him coordinator of the DFG priority program 2255 Cultural Heritage Construction - Basics of an engineering-based and networked monument preservation for the architectural heritage of the ultra-modern, in which history, civil engineering and monument preservation are to be brought together.

The pioneer for the establishment construction technology in the German research landscape is also one of the leading international representatives of the discipline there under the sign of construction history. In 2009 his chair organized the 3rd International Congress on Construction History.

Werner Lorenz is chairman and advisory board member in numerous committees, including chairman of the non-profit Vera Gerdau Foundation. Since 2007 he has been organizing the lecture series Practices and Potentials of Construction History at the German Museum of Technology together with Karl-Eugen Kurrer,

In 1993 Werner Lorenz was appointed the first university professor for the construction history in Germany at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus (BTU). Ten years later, the renaming of the chair to Construction History and Structural Preservation also formally reflected his early integration of dealing with historical engineering structures into teaching. Since his retirement in autumn 2018, he has been an honorary professor for the construction history at the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg.

In 1988 he taught as a guest lecturer for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at the renowned École des ponts ParisTech. At the same time, Lorenz was working on his dissertation on the subject of Building with Iron in the Berlin Area 1797–1850, with which he obtained a PhD in 1992 at the TU Berlin with Klaus Dierks. received his doctorate. The work rated summa cum laude was later published in book form under the title Konstruktion als Kunstwerk: Bauen mit Eisen in Berlin und Potsdam 1797-1850 (Construction as a work of art: Building with iron in Berlin and Potsdam 1797-1850).

Attending a seminar on Nietzsche's The benefits and disadvantages of history for life at the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin) was the impetus for an intensive examination of the historical context of civil engineering. At the same time, working as a research assistant at Klaus Dierks from the chair of structural engineering at the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Berlin from 1984 to 1989 heightened Lorenz's awareness of the aesthetic dimensions of building structures.

In addition to his university activities, Werner Lorenz had also regularly worked as a structural engineer and appraiser since the mid-1980s. In 1996 he founded a consultancy for structural engineering which specialises in the structural rehabilition of historic buildings and bridges.

Lorenz was born as the second of five children of an internist in Osnabrück. After graduating from high school in the Gymnasium Carolinum (Osnabrück) in 1971, he studied civil engineering with a specialization in structural engineering at the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin) and from 1974 worked as a research assistant in the mechanics department there with Peter Gummert and the chair of structural analysis with Gebhard Hees. At the latter, he wrote his diploma thesis in the field of finite elements in 1980 and then worked until 1984 as a structural engineer in an engineering office in Berlin. From 1983 onwards, he gained craftsmanship in addition to his engineering knowledge by rebuilding an old, destroyed farmhouse in Italy.

Werner Lorenz (born February 1, 1953 in Osnabrück) is a German structural engineer and a historian of construction technology. He held the chair for the construction history and structural preservation at the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, where he has been an honorary professor for the construction history since his retirement. He was also managing director of the Berlin engineering office Lorenz & Co. from 1999 to 2018 (since 2018 Dr. Fischer & Co.).