Leslie Earl Robertson
Personal information
Nationality	US
Birth date	1928 (age 80)
Work
Engineering Discipline	Structural engineer
Institution memberships	Institution of Structural Engineers
Practice name	Leslie E. Robertson Associates
Significant projects	World Trade Center Shanghai World Financial Centre Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong
Significant Awards	IStructE Gold Medal

Leslie Earl Robertson (born 1928) was one of the chief engineers of the World Trade Center in New York, which was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks and was responsible for the design of the buildings' sway-reduction features. He has since been structural engineer on numerous other projects, including the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.

Contents 1 Career 2 Education 2.1 Awards 3 External links 4 References

[edit] Career

Robertson's engineering career began in 1952, when he graduated from the Berkeley school of civil engineering with a bachelor of science degree and joined Kaiser Engineering. In 1958 he joined the structural and civil engineering firm Skilling, Ward, Magnusson, Barkshire (SWMB). As an "up-and-coming engineer", Robertson was contracted by Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson (WSHJ) to participate in the design of the World Trade Center Twin Towers (1966-1971), his first high rise construction.^[1] In 1973 Robertson was made a partner and SWMB was renamed Skilling, Helle, Christiansen, Robertson. The firm split its operations in 1982 with Robertson renaming the East Coast office Leslie E. Robertson Associates R.L.L.P.^[2]

The World Trade Center collapsed after two airplane attacks on the structures on September 11th, 2001. In hindsight, he has devoted much thought and emotion^[3] to the structure of the building.

Since the collapse of the World Trade Center, debate about the safety of his rent-space-maximized designs have engaged the profession, but most would agree that the design of the World Trade Center actually withstood the impact of the plane with enough time to allow many thousands to evacuate safely.

Robertson's firm participated in the development of a database of basic structural information for the towers of the World Trade Center (WTC1 and 2) for NIST and FEMA.^[4] in order to record the undocumented structural changes that had been made to the buildings after construction began.

[edit] Education

• 1952 Bachelor of Science, University of California, Berkeley
• 1986 Honorary degree, Doctor of Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• 1989 Honorary degree, Doctor of Science, University of Western Ontario
• 1991 Honorary degree, Doctor of Engineering, Lehigh University
• 2003 Honorary degree, Doctor of Engineering, University of Notre Dame

[edit] Awards

• 1993 Mayors Award for Excellence in Science and Technology for contributions to the design of the World Trade Center. World Trade Center Individual Service Medal for contributions to the reconstruction of the World Trade Center following the 1993 bombing.
• 2002 Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology.
• Gengo Matsui Prize of Japan
• 2003 ASCE OPAL Award for lifetime contributions to design.
• 2004 IStructE Gold Medal of the U.K.
• 2004 Fazlur Rahman Khan Medal for leadership in Structural Design.

[edit] External links

• Leslie E. Robertson Associates
• "New York: A Documentary Film"

[edit] References

v • d • e IStructE Gold Medal Winners Henry Adams (1922) • John Baker (1953) • Eugène Freyssinet (1957) • Hardy Cross (1958) • Félix Candela (1960) • William Glanville (1962) • John Guthrie Brown (1964) • Pier Luigi Nervi (1967) • Alfred Pugsley (1968) • Knud Johansen (1971) • Yves Guyon (1972) • Ove Arup (1973) • Henry Husband (1973) • Fritz Leonhardt (1975) • Oleg Kerensky (1977) • Nathan M. Newmark (1979) • Riccardo Morandi (1980) • Alec Skempton (1981) • Alan Harris (1984) • Frank Newby (1985) • Michael Horne (1986) • Alan Garnett Davenport (1987) • Anthony Flint (1988) • Gerhard Jack Zunz (1988) • Jörg Schlaich (1990) • Edmund Happold (1991) • Olgierd Zienkiewicz (1991) • Santiago Calatrava (1992) • Anthony Hunt (1994) • Michel Virlogeux (1996) • John Burland (1997) • F. Michael Burdekin (1997) • William Ian Liddell (1999) • Duncan Michael (2000) • Cheng Hon Kwan (2001) • Sam Thorburn (2003) • Leslie E. Robertson (2004) • John Roberts (2005) • Roger Johnson (2006) • Joseph Locke (2007) • Mike Glover (2008) •

This article about a United States engineer, inventor or industrial designer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e