Bela Gerster

* 1850. October 20. Košice † 1923. August 3. Budapest / civil engineer ; ; Parents: Miklós Gerster, military officer, Karolina Schmidt. Siblings: Árpád G. Gerster (1848–1923) doctor, Miklós E. Gerster (1862–1916) chemical engineer, and Manóné Klekner Gerster Constantine, Károlyné Gardini Gerster Etelka (1855–1920) opera singer and Árpádné Stegmüller Gerster Mária (1843–1930) painter. Daughter: Jolán Gerster (1889–1957) music teacher, pianist, secretary general of the National Liszt Ferenc Society. ; ; He completed his secondary schooling in Košice and obtained an engineering degree from the Vienna University of Technology. ; In Vienna, he was a city master builder, then his brother-in-law, and the head of István Kauser's companies (1874–1876). As a colleague of István Türr, he was a member of the expedition launched to lay out the route of the Panama Canal, then his referent (1876–1877), and an engineer of the Ferenc Canal (1877–1878). As a reserve lieutenant, he participated in the Bosnian campaign (1878–1880), was an engineer of the Vukovar-Samac and Upper Kulpa canals (1880–1881), was the director and chief engineer of the Korinthos Canal Construction Company, and was the designer of the Athens–Larissza–Tempevölgy railway line (1881–1886). He returned to Hungary, where he worked as a private engineer for approx. He designed and built 20 railway lines (1886–1919), head of the Construction Directorate of the Danube–Tisza Canal (1919–1923). ; He was involved in railway and canal construction. He was the first to recommend the construction of the later Panama Canal, but his most significant work was the planning and management of the crossing of the Isthmus of Corinth as a delegate of General István Türr (1881–1883). Later, he also participated in the development of István Türr's water management plan. In Hungary, he is credited with preparing the plan for the Danube–Tisza Canal. However, several of his plans were not implemented. He also planned to use the Franz Joseph Canal, which runs from Kissztapár to Újvidék, for its original purpose, i.e. for irrigation farming, in such a way that the necessary amount of water would be provided by the smaller and larger ditches branching off from it from right to left. Thus, an agricultural region similar to the Po Valley could have developed in North Bácska. His plans also included the creation of a Danube–Adriatic Canal, as well as a direct waterway between Budapest and Fiume, and between Timisoara and Fiume. However, his ideas could not be realized due to lack of interest, lack of capital, and also because at the end of the 19th century, Hungarian governments primarily preferred the development of railways over shipping routes. Among his railway constructions, the Košice–Tornái (1889) and the Szeps railway (1893) stand out. ; The works on the Corinth Canal began on 5 May 1882 and were finally inaugurated on 6 August 1893 by King George I and his wife Queen Olga, in the presence of Franz Joseph I. In addition to Béla Gerster, four other Hungarian engineers participated in the construction of the Corinth Canal: István Kauser, László Nyári, Pulszky Garibaldi and István Stegmüller. The most significant task of the construction, the cutting of the eighty-meter-high strait, is attributed to Gerster (he accomplished this architectural feat with 8,000 workers in 1883). He described the construction work in detail in his book in Hungarian and French, which is a classic of Hungarian technical history literature (The Strait of Corinth and its Crossing, 1894). A monument was inaugurated at the Corinth Canal in honor of the Hungarian engineers, primarily István Türr and Béla Gerster (on May 26, 2009). ; ; He was born in Košice, and his birthplace is marked by a trilingual (Hungarian-English-Slovak) memorial plaque. He lived and worked in Budapest (Benczúr Street 33, Terézváros, District VI), his house was designed by his cousin, architect Kálmán Gerster (1850–1927) (1905). He died in Budapest, and is buried in the Kerepesi Street Cemetery (= Fiumei Street), in a common grave with his father and daughter. His tombstone was created by Alajos Stróbl and Károly Lotz. The tomb was declared protected by the National Memorial and Tribute Committee (in 2004). During his several years of residence in Corinth, he amassed a very significant collection of antique ceramics. A significant part of the collection was donated by Béla Gerster's heirs to the Museum of Fine Arts (in 1950). On the 160th anniversary of his birth, the Slovak Technical Museum in Košice organized a commemorative exhibition in his honor (in November 2010). ; ; His main works: ; - Preliminary works for the crossing of the American Isthmus. (Magyar Mérnök és Építész Egylet Közlönye, 1878) ; - The canal network of the state of New York, with special regard to the decade 1869–1878. (Bp., 1879) ; - On the irrigation of the Great Plain. (Magyar Mérnök és Építész Egylet Közlönye, 1880) ; - On the Corinth Canal. (Magyar Mérnök és Építész Egylet Közlönye, 1893) ; - The Isthmus of Corinth and its crossing. With 14 plates, 1 map. (Bp., 1894, French: L’isthme de Corinthe et son percement. Bp., 1896) ; - The regulation of the harvest workers. (Library of the “Democracy” Lodge. 32. Bp., 1897); - The canal question. (Budapesti Napló, 12. 1902); - Economic education. (Budapesti Hírlap, 1909); - The financial affairs of the railways. (Magyar Mérnök és Építész Egylet Közlönye, 1910); - On the establishment of new railways of local interest. (Magyar Mérnök és Építész Egylet Közlönye, 1911); - Radical or conservative Freemasonry? (Library of the National Lodge. Bp., 1911); - Lessons from the movements initiated in the outside world by the radical Freemasonry t. t. (Library of the National Lodge. Bp., 1912); - The division and the reform of land policy. (Journal of the Hungarian Engineers and Architects Association, 1917).