Fund Prof. Haskia Nisimov
Prof. Haskia Nisimov
Haskia Davidov Nisimov was born on May 5 1911 in Sofia, where he completed his secondary education. He graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Padua, Italy, after which he returned to Bulgaria.
As a trainee engineer, Haskia Nisimov has worked consecutively in the engineering department of Sofia District and in the Structural Department of Sofia Municipality. From 1937 he went into private practice as a designer. Results of his activity are numerous projects for constructions of residential cooperative buildings, schools, administrative buildings, the swimming pools "Republic", "Dianabad" and others. From March 1942 to 1944 he was mobilized in the militarily and has worked on the Krupnik - Demir Hisar railway line, designing and taking part in the construction of bridges, tunnels, retaining facilities, and others.
In 1946 he became head of Department at the Ministry of Health. During this time was published his first book – "New Directions in General Theory and Technique of Reinforced Concrete". Since 1949 he has been appointed Chief Designer of Glavproekt, and he has held the post for 32 years. Haskia Nisimov established a whole school for retraining of structural engineers, having consulted his colleagues from all over Bulgaria.
In 1950 he published a "Course on Reinforced Concrete in the Stage of Destruction", which gave "a push" to the development of the theory of reinforced concrete in Bulgaria. In 1954 he became a lecturer in structures and reinforced concrete at the Higher Forestry Institute in Sofia, where in 1950 he was elected Associate Professor, and in 1966 – Full Professor.
Prof. Haskia Nisimov is the author of more than 200 articles and 26 printed books in Bulgarian, German, Spanish and Russian.
He participated in the development of standards for the design and calculation of reinforced concrete structures of buildings and structures in many sites of national importance in Bulgaria. Prof. Haskia Nisimov is the author of many inventions as well. For his scientific and technical activities in 1992 he was awarded the Gold badge "Prof. Asen Zlatarov."
Prof. Nisimov died on October 5, 1995 in Sofia.
In the beginning of 2006, Dolores Lazarova Haskia donated to the New Bulgarian University a part of his father's personal archive, containing original manuscripts, drawing documentation, design plans, author's books and projects. The archive also contains a considerable number of scientific publications by other authors, part of Prof. Nisimov personal library.
Professor Haskia Nisimov’s scientific and teaching activities are presented as well. These are some lectures delivered by the professor in 1965 at the Civil Engineering Institute of Havana, Cuba. The lecture course is entitled "Notes on the Calculation of Reinforced Concrete Structures by the Boundary State Method" and is presented in Spanish. It consists of 345 typescript sheets.
Documents related to the engineering activity of Prof. Nisimov are the main and most fully presented part in this archive. Dozens of conceptual, working and technical designs for the structural part and nearly 150 structural plans for the construction of hotels and motels in Sofia, Plovdiv and Borovets, prepared by Polish and French construction organizations in 1975-1984 and submitted to Prof. Nisimov for additional technical evaluation.
His letters to the Committee of Recreation and Tourism have been kept, in connection with his task of reviewing and possibly approving the construction plans of a hotel under construction in Sofia, executed by the French company SODETEG in 1976. There is correspondence with another French company, Devars Naudo, about a hotel complex under construction in Borovets and the calculations performed by the company on welded grilles, which must be checked by Prof. Haskia Nisimov.
Printed publications in the fund include monographs, textbooks and studies, written by Prof. Haskia Nisimov or co-authored and form part of his personal library. Many of these texts are now bibliographically rare. The personal library of Prof. Nisimov is represented by several dozen works, closely specialized in the field of civil engineering, in Bulgarian, Russian, Romanian and German, accessible for use by anyone whose scientific interests and pursuits are in this direction.