Ove Arup

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Sir Ove Nyquist Arup CBE, MICE, MIStructE, (born at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1895 and died in 1988) was a leading Anglo-Danish engineer, the founder of the internationally important firm of Arup and generally considered the foremost engineer of his time.

He studied philosophy at Copenhagen University and engineering at the Polyteknisk Læreanstalt, Copenhagen, specializing in reinforced concrete. In 1922 he began work with a Danish firm in Hamburg called Christiani & Nielsen, and in 1924 he moved to their London office as chief engineer.

In the 1930s he worked as structural consultant to the Tecton partnership, notably on the Penguin Pool at Regent’s Park Zoo, Whipsnade Zoo, Dudley Zoo and on Highpoint One, Highgate. The close working relationship that Arup developed with Tecton's senior partner Berthold Lubetkin, proved to be highly important in the development of both men's careers.

He moved next to a London construction company, J. L. Kier & Co. in London, as director and chief designer from 1934–1938, and during the 1930s he also worked with Ernö Goldfinger, Wells Coates, Maxwell Fry, Yorke, Rosenberg & Mardall and Marcel Breuer.

He became a member of the executive committee of MARS in 1935.

In 1938, with his cousin Arne Arup he founded Arup & Arup Limited, a firm of engineers and contractors.

In 1946 he created a team of structural consultants called Arup and Partners. A further company, Arup Associates, developed later as a partnership between the engineer Arup and the architect Philip Dowson and was a multi-disciplinary company providing engineering, architectural, and surveying services. Ultimately, all of the Arup names resulted in a firm called simply Arup.

Ove Arup personally supervised the design and construction of Durham's Kingsgate Bridge in 1963. The firms first bridge Arup was particularly attached to the project and had his ashes scattered from it following his death. There is now a bust of Arup at one end of the Bridge.