BBR History

BBR was founded in 1944 by three enterprising and technically brilliant young Swiss civil engineers - Max Birkenmaier, Antonio Brandestini and Mirko Robin Ros. Their Partnership, "Bureau BBR" - formed to promote inovative construction techniques - set in motion over 60 years of continuous leading-edge development in the field of post-tensioning and related construction engineering.

The pioneers of BBR
Max Birkenmaier | Antonio Brandestini | Mirko Robin Ros

The BBR story begins during the Second World War, when materials were in short supply - the import of steel was difficult and, with reduced energy availability, cement was a precious commodity. Determined to use their ingenuity to overcome these limitations, Birkenmaier, Brandestini and Ros explored the savings to be made by using pretensioned reinforcement for concrete support girders.

In 1945, BBR's first product - the pretensioned small beam - was brought to the market. Meanwhile, the trio had recognised and fulfilled the need for proper design, machinery and tools to allow easy handling of post-tensioning work, as well as for the efficient manufacture of prestressing elements.

BBR's long history of innovative development began in 1948, when the partnership patented the BBRV "button head wire" post-tensioning system.

At home and in Europe, there was a demand for prestressing concrete with anchored tendons. Whilst some methods to anchor prestressing steel were known and had been tried, the accuracy of the anchorages was insufficient.

BBR entered into discussions with a well-known wire producer, Dipl. Ing. K. Vogt - the beginning of an enduring collaborative relationship. Together, they developed and produced a button heading from cold drawn high tensile wire. This anchoring method was named BBRV - reflecting the collaboration.

Subsequently, BBR developed a complete range of prestressing and post-tensioning systems, ground anchors and stay cable anchorages, covering all structural engineering applications. This work mainly took place during the 1950s and 1960s, during the phase of rapid development in prestressing technology.

BBR's first major bridge project was for Swiss Federal Railways - the Andelfingen Viaduct - built in 1952. Their first cable stayed bridge was constructed in 1958 in Stuttgart, Germany, while the contract for BBR's first major high-rise building was awarded in 1959.

In 1996, BBR supplied and installed the world's first carbon fibre stay cables for the highway bridge "Storchenbruecke" in Winterthur, Switzerland. A new anchorage for carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) wires was patented in 1998.

Prestressed concrete has become the most widely used construction material for today's bridges and, increasingly, also for buildings. BBR has led in this development with innovative post-tensioning systems for such structures.

From the very early days, construction engineering firms around the world were keen to participate in the success of BBR's designs and products. It was recognised that not only a license to use the designs and sell the specialist equipment was necessary, but also that an effective process for knowledge transfer was needed to support best practice in the use of BBR products and techniques. Thus the BBR Network was born and, today, it operates in over 40 different countries.

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