DB: Those of us interested in the history of engineering would have been grateful to Ammann had he written down his own reflections of his own life in his own words, which he never did and which most engineers don't do. And I think the reason for that is, of course, first of all, he was running his office right up 'til, practically 'til the end. So he was actively engaged in practice. But I think also that the engineer and society itself has the view that engineering is a rather technical profession of filling in the numbers and getting answers and that you give the engineer the problem and the engineer solves the problem and that's it, and that there isn't anything more to it than that. And once you start talking about the engineer having emotions and those emotions controlling what's being done, the general public is certainly very confused by that. And it's, and yet as we, as we know with Ammann, it was his emotions that controlled so much of what he did.

So, therefore, since that is the case, and only because that's the case, his personal reflections would have been culturally very interesting and important. So it is that in the future with engineering as the history of engineering develops, and as people begin to understand that this is in effect cultural history, that since we live in a technological age, since we are an engineering culture, that the thoughts and ideas of the people who make it are indeed important. And this is something which in the first instance in my opinion is an obligation of academic engineers, because it is that type, we are that type of people that have the opportunity to reflect on things and to teach it. And it is very important to teach to young prospective engineers that they can in fact connect their emotional and rational sides in the works that they're doing. And the only way to make that clear is to give them the histories of these people.

Engineering needs to be taught much more from the perspective of what individual people have done. Now this is not to say that this is purely the great man theory of history but rather that it is one central component of all history of any type, but certainly in engineering it must be seen that way as well and Ammann is a wonderful example of that. And the very fact that his entrepreneurial side, particularly in the twenties when he was selling his bridge, that that was left out of all of the discussions later on about Ammann, that in the testimonials and in the ceremonies commemorating him and in the articles about him, none of this was ever mentioned. He was portrayed as the engineers' engineer, always carrying out the works of other people, always sitting down and doing the calculations and thinking about the issues of construction and so forth but the idea that he would go out and sell this, the idea that he would act almost as a politician seemed to be so out of character with engineers that it was left out of the record. And of course it isn't out of character and it isn't wrong for engineers to operate that way particularly if they operated the way Ammann did, on the basis of this strong technical background, carefully worked out plans, not as a superficial salesman but as a salesman who really knew the product and had actually gone through in his mind the construction of the product and had gone through the actual experience of building similar things before that.

DB: It is common practice to attribute these works to individuals. We speak of the Brooklyn Bridge as John Roebling's bridge built by Washington Roebling. We speak of the Verrazano and the George Washington Bridge as Ammann's bridges. Ah, indeed there are in a way two caveats to bring to that, one is that in the public mind very often the only name ever associated with a bridge is the name of a politician. I mean after all George Washington was a politician and the Verrazano Bridge was for a long time referred to as Robert Moses' bridge.

DB: In talking about Ammann, we, we speak about his as getting the credit for the design of the George Washington Bridge and the others up to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Is that fair? There are two sides to that. One is, often the politicians get the bridges named for them and they even get credit for it. On the other hand, there are many people working for the principal in the firm, in this case Ammann, who do substantial work in the creation of that bridge. They often don't get the credit they deserve for that. Nevertheless, it is fair to say, just as Ammann struck out on his own with the George Washington Bridge, that these works usually do require some kind of an entrepreneur or some kind of a leader who is capable not only of visualizing the overall form and the overall way it will be built, but also in choosing the right people to work together on the project. And so the very fact that talented people are chosen, people of great ability are chosen to carry out major tasks in the bridge, doesn't diminish the fact that there is a leader and the leader is the one that has the vision. Naturally, as the leader gets older, as Ammann did with the Verrazano Bridge, other people play a larger and larger role in the detailed design. That was only natural. But I believe it is still fair to call it a, an Ammann bridge. It certainly fits with the development of his style as we see it through all the bridges.

DB: Is the Verrazano the climax of American bridge building? In certainly one sense it is. It is the longest spanning bridge in the world. It stays that way for several decades. It represents the high point of New York's dominance as the world's greatest port. So in those symbolic senses, it is the high point. It is also a high point in the sense that it is one answer to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure -- a very light design, a relatively light design for such a huge span, and yet one that has exhibited no difficulties, technical difficulties, at all. It was heavily criticized at the time as being backward. There were bridges in Britain which were built with air foil type decks which appeared to be more of an advance, and that's a question still debated, but I think from the standpoint -- from many standpoints, it does represent a high point in American design.

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