In spite of the presence of the edgecable the tent canvas
has to absorb a large part of these forces. If the fabric
is not reinforced, it tears. When | controlled the tent
construction, which | nearly always did, my first concern
 was for the edge. During the fime the roof of Wunsiede!
 was being built, all the participants were overburdened;
 no-one had checked the edge or considered
it so important.
Normally heavy belts are placed alongside the cable
to absorb these forces. In Wunsiedel this was not
done, and the expected mishap occurred. We were all
to blame. The man who really should have determined
this force, Fritz Leonhardt’s young project engineer,
an outstanding young expert, was not familiar with
the subject. He did not know of the danger, and had
neglected these forces. In the Constance construction
offices of that time the edge reinforcement had always
been thoroughly built in when Peter Stromeyer or | had
categorically demanded it. But the true necessity of
such reinforcement was only taken seriously after this
mishap occured. As always, Peter Stromeyer took upon
himself the repair of the greater part of the damage,
Leonhardt and | shared the rest. We breathed more
freely. The injured assembly worker of Constance was
soon beter. .
Six months later, the roof was recreated. The world
was bright again, and we had gained another important
experience. Wunsiedel had been a real collapse. Very
often people had asked Stromeyer and me:"Did one of
your tents ever collapse ?". Since then, there has
been an unequivocal answer:"Yes, one did, and |
was even to blame for it"

Story No. 23: THE JAPANESE ARE COMING

Peter Stromeyer was again and again the spiritual and
financial operational base for tent building in Central
Europe. Both architects and builders came to him. In
about 1960,the Japanese tent industry also came for
the first time. Several delegations of different groups
arrived at Constance or Berlin. At that time, it was
nothing special. Dark-suited Japanese with cameras
were flooding West Germany. They wanted licences
and agreements, or (even without them) they wanted
simply to know where they could acquire know-how.
Much times was spent in negotiations. We showed
what we knew, made reasonable offers for cooperation,

but most of the time we did not hear from them again,
Jntil we saw similar products in competition on the
market.
When in 1968, | went to Japan for the first time, in
response to an invitation by my colleague and friend
Kenzo Tange, there were many surprises. There was
hardly an airport, a garden park, or a small beach
where | was not confronted unexpectedly with a tent
which might have come straight from Stromeyer’s work~
shop or my drawing boards. The tents were copied to
the last detail, often frighteningly bad in quality, somerimes
 very good, and, in some cases, of a quality
never attained before. Among the Japanese producers,
one of them distinguished himself by a good knowledge
of geometry and by a gradual improvement in quality:
the Taiyo Kogyo company under the management of
‘ather and son, Nohmura, and their chief engineer,
lsono. In the beginning we were perhaps a little angry
because some of our opportunities had been lost. But
‘hen we started to admire the Japanese. If ever large
‘ent building in Central Europe was to decline for
economic reasons, as had happened in England and the
JSA, then it would at least be further developed in
Japan, and not only for the sake of making money, but
also to try to help solve questions of survival and exoerience,
 with constantly increasing technical quality.
lt was only the Japanese involvement in tent building
‘hat made possible what occurred at the 1970 Osaka
Expo, where the whole Expo became an experimental
field for tent building. Osaka was often spoken of as
rhe biggest accumulation of imitations of my cooperation
with Peter Stromeyer. Osaka was the point of departure
for a new involvement in tent building which has borne
many fruits.

Story No. 24: LAUSANNE

Cable-net tents are a particular adventure in the life
of Peter Stromeyer. It has long been common knowledge
 that cotton canvas can be reinforced by cables.
Hemp ropes webbed belts are "attached", sewn with
thread, to the cotton canvas. Many of the very large
circus tents had such net-like rope reinforcements, or
they were reinforced by nets of sewn on belis. This is
necessary, since ordinary tent canvas alone is often
not sufficient for long spans. In the roof of the Swiss
pavilion, 1952, Peter Stromeyer’s first large tent

(3rd story), he had spanned a steel-cable network underneath
 the cotton canvas, without linking canvas and
net. Even cable junctions in the net had not been
knotted to one another.
Jetween 1955 and 1970, zinc coated, thin-wire steel
cables were inexpensive and good. They are extremely
stable, and working with them is easy and simple. They
zan be clamped and pressed. Their exterior corrosion
orotection is good for 10 years if exposed, and good
for over 50 years if protected.
Although | well knew that it was really possible to reinforce
 a cotton fabric only with a net of cotton, hemp,
or linen, since the strains of fabric and cable must be
similar, we developed and built canvas-spanned steelcable
 net roofs. The main reason for this was the fact
that in the meantime several large pre-stressed steelcable
 net suspended roofs had been built, starting with
the Raleigh-Arena to the Grolland church for Carsten
Schréck where we pre-stressed a uniformly meshed
cable~-net for the first time and then covered it with
wood. The large order that pushed us forward was the
Swiss National Exhibition at Lausanne in 1963. It was
a curious thing. All nations know that the really
lovable Swiss people are impatient on one point: national
 pride. But to organize a huge exhibition every 25
years, to stimulate this pride, is not easy.
As early as 1960, they came to Peter Stromeyer. It
was known that halls, pavilions and symbols would be
required. Since, for whatever personal reasons, he
also had Swiss nationality, this was not bad. But the
products had to be produced in Switzerland: Made in
Switzerland. After all there was the factory at Kreuzlingen.
 What was not possible was that all projects
had also to be invented, developed, designed, constructed,
 and calculated in Switzerland.
They wanted to erect "the road to Switzerland" with
stiffened soap-bubbles. If they did not mean to do this
with our "pneus" (in German Lufthallen, air-halls),
something new would have to be invented. But when
they were confronted with the problem of having
thousands of visitors enter through revolving doors, the
idea was given up. Nevertheless, very soon there was
an opportunity to adapt our developments to the natioaal
 exhibition.
Thus Stromeyer built the roof and walls of the "Agriculture
 and Forestry™ pavilion complex with a roof
membrane, spanned with high and low points, arranged
on a grid. He also developed a very interestingly folded
wall, which permitted good ventilation. But it became

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