Paul Haller Structural Design Award

Celebrating excellence in structural masonry design

The Paul Haller Structural Design Award honors an individual engineer or engineering firm that has advanced the understanding and practice of structural masonry through elegant, efficient, and innovative design

Recognized achievements may include innovative responses to design challenges, creative applications that highlight the unique advantages of masonry, or detailing that simplifies construction while maintaining elegance.

The award may be presented annually at the discretion of The Masonry Society.

Deadline

Nominations are due by June 30th each year.

Submit a Nomination

Any individual engineer or engineering firm that has made notable contributions to the understanding, design, or practical use of structural masonry is eligible. Nominees may be at any stage of their career, and posthumous nominations are welcome.

Nominations are evaluated based on the nominee’s contributions to advancing the understanding and application of masonry in practice. Candidates not selected will remain in the nomination pool indefinitely for future consideration.

  • A commemorative plaque presented at The Masonry Society’s Annual Meeting
  • A complimentary one-year individual membership in TMS
  • A feature article about the recipient(s), published in the TMS E-Newsletter and other venues dedicated to structural engineering and masonry
  • An invitation to present their work at a TMS Annual Meeting
  • A complimentary one-year listing in the TMS Consultant/Speaker Directory

All nominees will receive a letter from the Haller Award Committee acknowledging their nomination, recognizing the contributions that inspired it, and outlining the selection process. If the nomination was submitted by someone other than the nominee, the letter will also identify the nominator.

Recent Recipients

About Paul Haller

Professor Paul Haller was a dynamic engineer who helped revolutionize the design of structural masonry.  Haller was born on March 7, 1902 in Zurich, Switzerland. He was formally educated at the Federal Technical University in Zurich, graduating in 1924.

After graduation, Haller worked as a practicing design engineer for several years, and then he joined the Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials and Research. While there, he conducted extensive testing on masonry walls because after the second World War, concrete and steel materials were scarce throughout Europe. During his career, he tested over 1600 brick masonry walls, and the data from those experiments were used in the design and construction of an 18-story load-bearing brick building that consisted of walls from 12 to 15 inches in thickness. Such tall, thin walls caused nothing less than a revolution in the structural use of masonry since for the first time, a rational design method for structural masonry became possible.

In 1949, Professor Haller joined the engineering faculty at his alma mater and he became a full professor in 1966. Professor Haller retired in 1967 to enter private practice as a forensic engineer. In 1987, he died at the age of 85.

Paul Haller

Recipients