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Geotechnical News • September 2017
COMMEMORATIVE EDITION
In 1982 members of the Canadian
Geotechnical Society conceived the
idea of a book recording the devel-
opment of geotechnical engineer-
ing in Canada. Since a number of
the early practitioners were still
living at the time, foremost among
them Bob Hardy and Bob Legget,
the approach was intended to create
“a living history ... through the eyes
and recollections of living engineers,
to show the humanity that underlies
the development of major geotechni-
cal projects in Canada.”
As this book is now out-of-print, we
will be publishing excerpts from it
over the next few editions of Geo-
technical News. Ultimately, a pdf
copy will be available.
Geotechnical Engineering in Canada
An Historical Overview
Cyril E. Leonoff
Terzaghi trained several other men
who would go on to eminence in soil
mechanics, and his tenure at MIT can
logically be considered the birth of
soil mechanics in America.
Terzaghi returned toVienna in 1930 as
a professor at the Technical University,
where his department soon became
a renowned centre of soil mechanics
attracting students from many coun-
tries. And he continued to consult on
important projects throughout Europe,
North Africa, and the Soviet Union.
In
1936, as part of the Harvard
Tercentenary celebrations, Arthur
Casagrande, as Conference Secre-
tary, convened the First International
Conference on Soil Mechanics and
Foundation Engineering, with Karl
Terzaghi as Conference President.
Despite Terzaghi’s initial misgivings
that it was premature, the conference
was a great success, attracting 206 del-
egates from 20 countries. At this meet-
ing, Terzaghi and Casagrande were
commissioned to set up an executive
committee to continue thework of the
conference, an action which became
the catalyst for establishment of the
International Society for Soil Mechan-
ics and Foundation Engineering
(ISSMFE).
In 1936 Terzaghi became a visiting
lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School
of Engineering. After Hitler occupied
Austria in 1938, Terzaghi moved
permanently toHarvard, becoming
Professor of the Practice of Civil
Engineering, where he taught courses
on engineering geology and applied
soil mechanics. He also lectured at
the Imperial College of Science and
Technology in London, England, at
MIT, and at the University of Illinois.
His 1948 book,
Soil Mechanics in
Engineering Practice,
coauthored
with Professor Ralph B. Peck of
Illinois, became the seminal text for
all engineers practicing in the field of
soil mechanics. Terzaghi alsoproduced
more than 100 scientific papers during
his career.
Terzaghi was never content to restrict
his work to experimenting in the
laboratory or theorizing at his desk.
Early in his career he realized that
soil mechanics could only be success-
fully applied as a tool in engineer-
ing practice through a capacity for
judgment based on years of contact
with actual field conditions. Whereas
thedesigner of structures deals with
steel and concrete, whose properties
are constant when manufactured in
accordance with standard specifica-
tions, the designer of earthwork
engineering has to apply the laws of
mechanics and hydraulics to an infi-
nite variety of heterogeneous materials
formed as a result of natural processes.
Design assumptions have always to
be verified or modified by observing,
first hand, soil conditions as they are
exposed and measured during con-
struction. In his paper, “Soil Mechan-
ics in Action,” Terzaghi succinctly
outlined his approach: “Soil mechan-
ics will not consistently serve its pur-
pose until practicing engineers come
to realize that it is a supplement to,
and not a substitute for, common sense
combined with knowledge acquired by
experience.”
When Terzaghi’s controversial
theories began to circulate outside of
university walls, they were first met
with skepticism among American civil
engineers. But, as their validity was
