Scaffolding construktor

The legendary master carpenter and timber constructor Richard Coray sen. (1869-1946) continually refined the art of scaffolding and thereby made a significant contribution to modern bridge building. After his early years in Trin GR, an apprenticeship as a carpenter and temporary employment as a joiner, he completed his studies at the Technical School Winterthur, graduating in 1892.

His use of intrepid transport ropeways to remove windthrown timber was widely noticed and this established his reputation as a bold and courageous entrepreneur. A first large scaffolding for the construction of the RhB bridges in Solis and Wiesen soon followed. His international reputation grew due to his own blueprint of the fan-shaped scaffolding for the railway viaduct at Langwies. He travelled to Croatia, Corsica and to Turkey, where he erected scaffolding for the construction of the Baghdad railway. 

His life's work was many-faceted; among other things he built an industrial railway for the Trin power station, a wooden bridge in the Lower Engadine and secured the Leaning Tower in St. Moritz. However, the development of his own Coray system remains preeminent. This was used to erect huge wooden structures in western Switzerland, as well as his most important late work, the scaffolding for the Salginatobel Bridge, the Pont de Gueuroz above the Trient Gorge in Valais and the Tara Bridge in Montenegro.

Richard Coray had already worked out a project for a wire rope suspension bridge in 1918 to secure the crossing of the deep Salgina ravine, however it was not implemented. Eleven years later, he erected what is probably his best-known wooden structure to enable the construction of the world-famous bridge. The scaffolding has long since disappeared – today it can be admired as a "temporary work of art" in the form of impressive models and magnificent photographs.