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Professor Istvan B F Kormoss, was a Hungarian who came to the College of Europe as a student after WWII.
He was in the Antoine DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY Promotion (1950-1951). He stayed on in the College to teach and to enthuse his own students in the subject of European cartography and the geographical and political realities that lay behind the ever changing map of Europe and beyond. He eventually took Belgian citizenship and remains today an honorary professor.
He is a diffident man who does not flaunt his learning nor court publicity. He does not therefore have any much presence on the internet. So it gives me much pleasure to record here the study trip he took us on to Hellevoetsluis (or Haringvlietdam) in the Netherlands early on in our academic year at the College.
He was acknowledged then as the Community Cartographer, but this trip went beyond maps.
I could say he took us sailing but that wouldn't be quite true. We were clearly in the proximity of sailboats as our ferry took us closer to this massive project.
The continuous series of huge mechanical dykes would not only regulate the water but would also carry a major road across this part of the Rhine/Meuse delta.
Some of the work looked almost complete but there was still a long way to go.
This column is one of the many which will support the sluice mechanisms and carry the road overhead.
Professor Kormoss explained the intricacies of the structures to an attentive, international, student audience (here German, English, Italian & Bulgarian).
This is how the finished product looks today, from the sky!
The arrow points to the sluices.
Google satellite image 2018
And a closer view allows you to clearly see where the huge columns figure in the final design.
This detail from a photo by Bert Knot from 2007 clearly shows the finished product at ground level.
There's always one, isn't there.
But rest assured, we had no need of the life-rafts under the bench.
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Before I leave you, I thought you might like to see this extract from a satirical sheet I started on arrival at the College. This is from the second, and alas, last issue. It was on a single sheet of squared paper and posted on the College notice-board.
At the recent 50th Anniversary Reunion nobody seemed to have remembered it so it's probably just as well I didn't waste any more time on it.
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