The Medal of Merit awarded by the President to Ing. Jan Vítek, DrSc.

The President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, has awarded the Medal of Merit to Jan Vítek, Doctor of Science, who has celebrated his 100^th birthday this year –  a civil engineer, inventor and university professor, pioneer of prestressed concrete technology, and designer of the Nusle Bridge and other prominent bridge structures in the Czech Republic and abroad, for his services to the state in the field of technology.

Ing. Jan Vítek, DrSc., graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague, where he studied between the years 1945 and 1949. He specialized in structural and transportation engineering. He was awarded the CSc. degree in 1958 after defending his dissertation on Prestressed Concrete Airport Pavements. He completed his postgraduate studies in Paris (1963–1964). He obtained the DrSc. degree in 1988 for his dissertation on The Theory and Structural Solutions of Bridge Structures. His design activities are exceptionally extensive; he has been mainly involved in the construction of many bridges – the most famous of them being the Nusle Bridge, for which he was selected for construction as the winner of a nationwide competition.

Ing. Jan Vítek, DrSc., has worked in long-term co-operation with our Faculty. He is the author of a study on the use of concreting in building a flying arch bridge and the design of sliding formwork and has participated in the structural assessment of bridge structures made up of prestressed precast and pre-tensioned prestressed beams. He has also led specialized courses at the Faculty and was a member of the examination boards for doctoral studies.

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