HERITAGE
Trapp
have been building for over 135 years. Established
as a regional building contractor, they are today an internationally active
concern.
Over this time they have developed an understanding of the necessity to expand on a sound basis, an ability to respond successfully to some of the most challenging circumstances arising anywhere, the perception that expediency and complexity can also be combined with beauty, and an exemplary reputation for quality and sticking to deadlines on a global basis - this basic principle still enjoys ultimate priority. Buildings and structures created by Trapp are to be found on 4 continents today.
This foresight in planning and timely adaptation to today's challenges are the corporate guidelines today, as in days of old. Like their forefathers before them, these inbred principles are still being pursued today by the fourth generation Dr. Ing Ernst J. Trapp and the fifth Generation Dipl. Kfm. Max Trapp with the attendant responsibility.
The founder of F.C. Trapp Building Contractors, Friederich Carl Trapp practised his profession as an engineer at the Cologne-Minden Railway Company with great dedication before setting up his own building production operations in Wesel, Germany in 1872 - a place where there really was something to build then. The company has been pursuing this stipulation for over 135 years ever since: Trapp build everywhere, and anywhere that their customers want to work with this family construction concern.
Friedrich Carl Trapp guided his company safely through the early days soon after the initial large-scale project had been completed, the shore bridges for the Wesel railway bridge 1872-1875. He also undertook building structures outside Wesel as well as canal construction. Providing water-bound macadam as well as a road roller operations contributed to the construction contracting business expanding.
The
company founder passed on his expansive experience to his son, Master
Builder Ernst Trapp, who managed the company through the difficult
times of the First World War and the depression. He built railway stations,
dams, courthouses, canals, barracks, schools and homes, continuing his
father's work to provide "tailor-made" construction services.
Till today the courthouses at Dinslaken, Rees and Wesel bear witness to
his work.
The reputation of F.C. Trapp abroad was established by his son, Dr.-Ing. Ernst Trapp, by his pursuing the offer of the Afghan King Aman Ullah and moving to the Near East as managing road construction engineer. This means to say that F.C. Trapp is one of the oldest building contractors in Germany working abroad.
On his return from Afghanistan Dr.-Ing Ernst Trapp also worked very successfully as a contractor building and extending the German motorway system of that time. F.C. Trapp is one of the oldest motorway construction companies in Germany. Motorway construction on the sections Bayreuth-Hof, Nuremberg-Ingolstadt and Salzburg-Linz brought the breakthrough to a large industrial building concern. The entire company spent the turmoil and confusion of the second world war initially as a construction gang in Russia, subsequently in Italy. After the war like many others F.C. Trapp had to start again from scratch. All the machinery had been destroyed, the property lost, the members of staff scattered everywhere.
Filled with the will to emulate his grandfather's example in commitment
and discharging his duty as well as sustaining the company, Dr.-Ing. Ernst
Trapp got down to the large task of building up the company again. Building
homes in Wesel that had been 97 % destroyed in the war, industrial construction,
road construction, infrastructure operations - it did not take long for
F.C. Trapp to be successfully working again in all areas of construction.
Stripping the slag heaps in Oberhausen, building the new bridge over the
Rhine near Wesel and the large-scale Weeze airport were the first large
post war orders for the family concern.
F.C. Trapp construction sites were henceforth to be encountered again everywhere throughout Germany - including Berlin. The Berlin branch was established in 1962 and expanded by the fields of road building with special emphasis on set paving work by the successful take-over of Paul Gresitza, a company rich in tradition. Complementary to this, Trapp Tief- and Gleisbau GmbH ( Engineering and Railways) was founded in 1983.
Arising from a long term working co-operation with Messrs Speeck from Datteln was TRAPP & Speeck GmbH& Co. for the execution of pipeline construction and fitting production. After German reunification, this company obtained a subsidiary in T& S Trapp + Speeck GmbH& Co. KG in Fuchsshain near Leipzig, to pursue operations successfully in civil engineering and pipeline construction in Saxony. Trapp established Eberswalder Baugesellschaft (Eberswalde Construction company) with its headquarters at Finowfurt in 1990.
Trapp has built a great deal in Berlin: on Bundesplatz, Philharmonie,
Maerkisches Viertel, in Frohnau, at the Reichstag, at the Tempelhof and
Tegel airports, Steglitzer Kreisel, Kudamm-Karree, etc. The first breach
of the Berlin Wall was the brilliant climax of Trapp's commitment in Berlin.
At the behest of the Berlin Senate one week after the Wall had been opened,
the Road Building Department made the first provisional crossing in the
Wiener Strasse in Kreuzberg over one weekend.
The activities and experience of"building-up Eastern Germany" that were continued in a number of branches and established participations were show-cased by Dipl.-Kfm. Max Trapp, who had been made co-responsible for building up the Dresden branch in1992, as his own contribution.
Dr: Ing. Ernst Trapp gradually passed on the fortunes of the family construction company to his two sons, Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Carl Trapp and Dr.-Ing. Ernst J. Trapp, who had both been working for F.C. Trapp in responsible positions since the end of the fifties.
Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Carl Trapp entered F.C. Trapp Building Contractors, which had been doing business as a limited partnership since 1949, as a special partner on 1st January 1954. From 1957 to 1959 he worked in the Baghdad Branch on the Kerbala-Najaf desert road in Iraq before taking over F.C. Trapp's technical management in 1961 and being concerned with setting up the company's offices in Berlin. He was appointed the Berlin Commissioner of German Industry from 1976 to 1991. Since 1986 Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Carl Trapp had been a member of the board of the Industrial Association of the Building Industry for North-Rhine Westphalia, the largest state industrial construction association in Germany and since 1994 he had been the President and Treasurer of the Main Association of the German Construction Industry.
His brother, Dr: Ing. Ernst J. Trapp, took over business management of the joint holding company Strabag (Nigeria) Ltd. in Lagos, Nigeria in 1957. In the ensuing years he was concerned with re-organising the company commercial administration, and extending the business abroad up until 1968 before becoming a managing partner in 1969. He has been the spokesman of the F.C. Trapp board and became the managing director of the subsidiary Rheinbau Entwicklungsgesellschaft in 1995 which dealt with project development inside the Trapp Group.
Recently the construction activities in Germany have been merged into the Royal Volker Wessels Stevin group in the Netherlands.
The international business of the Dr. Ing. TRAPP & Co Construction GmbH now called TCI Trapp Construction International is owned and managed by the Trapp family led by Dr. Ing. Ernst Trapp and his son Dipl. Kfm. Max Trapp.
