Julius Natterer, (December 5, 1938 – October 25, 2021), was a German engineer and professor of wood construction at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

Career

Julius Natterer studied at the Technical University of Munich, where he graduated in 1965. He then stayed there for nine years as an assistant. During this time, he founded his own wood design office. In 1978, he was appointed to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. There he headed the timber construction laboratory (IBOIS / EPFL) which, according to the ideas of the university president, Maurice Cossandey, was to give a new impetus to timber construction in Switzerland. Peer Haller, Professor from the Institute metal and timber construction at the University of

Dresden University of Technology TU Dresden (for german: Technische Universität Dresden, abbreviated as TUD and often wrongly translated as "Dresden University of Technology") is a public research university, the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, th ...

in Germany, says that he is one of the most important personalities in the field of timber construction. He is the designer of many new construction systems in solid wood and nailed planks. He is also known for the geodesic roofs he designed in wood, such as the Polydome at the EPFL in 1991 and the Expo in Hannover in 2000. Julius Natterer, as a practitioner and teacher, quickly realised that structural wood engineering had to be taught in a mixed way to engineering and architecture students. To develop this ambition, he initiated a postgraduate course in wood engineering and architecture at EPFL in 1988 in collaboration with Professor Roland Schweitzer. A pioneer of this type of master's degree at EPFL, he joined forces with Professor Jean-Luc Sandoz, an engineer in wood materials and structures, to bring this training to an international level. This expert continued to share his passion for wood construction, long after his academic retirement in 2005. Julius Natterer is regularly quoted as a reference by the generations that follow him, particularly during official presentations on sustainable development.

Prizes and honors

* 1976: German Metal Structure Prize * 1981: Mies van der Rohe Award

European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award is a prize given biennially by the European Union and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, 'to acknowledge and reward quality architectural production in ...

* 1986: Medal of the Academy of Architecture * 1992: Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences chaired by Lena Treschow Torell * 1995: Ernst Pelz Prize and Merit Award in the USA * 1999: Bibliography of Swiss History * 2002: World Award for Timber Structures in Malaysia * 2005: awarded the main prize of the Schweighofer Foundation * 2005: Designat