Establishment of the "Aktiengesellschaft"

The young company had already been very successful under the name of "Helfmann Brothers", but its construction projects were still limited to the Frankfurt area. The firm simply did not have the necessary capital to expand its business. In this question it was Philipp Helfmann who proved to be the more daring and perhaps also the more far-sighted of the two brothers, because it is surely no coincidence that be initiated the conversion of the company into an Aktiengesellschaft - a publicly quoted corporation - only shortly after Balthasar passed away. The name he chose, "Aktiengesellschaft f�r Hoch- und Tiefbauten", can be translated as "Construction and Civil Engineering Corporation", and he emphasized expressly the continuity from its origins. In May 1896 he announced proudly:

"Mr. Philipp Helfmann is the Managing Director of the company and will continue be in charge of the overall management of its business. He will continue the business with the employees who were always available to his previous firm, and in the same manner."

After its conversion into a joint-stock corporation, HOCHTIEF thus initially remained a family company, and Philipp Helfmann remained totally responsible for it.

Responsibility for operation as long ago as 1899

For all his consciousness of tradition, Philipp Helfmann was often capable of thinking very "modern" thoughts. One impressive testimony to his willingness to break new entrepreneurial ground is the Bad Orb project. ("Bad" means "Spa" in this context.) In 1899 HOCHTIEF entered into a contract with the spa town of Orb.

The particular feature of this project lay in the obligations taken over by HOCHTIEF, which went well beyond the simple matter of putting up a few buildings. In addition to planning and erecting them, the company was also to design the outdoor facilities - roads, parks, and gardens - arranging finance through a company established for this project, Bad Orb GmbH, and finally to operate the spa with HOCHTIEF taking at least indirect responsibility. Looked at this way, the Bad Orb project was an early example of system leadership. The first major order from abroad also still came into the Helfmann era: the Genua grain store (1899-1901).

Reinforced concrete revolutionizes construction technology

The grain silo is a significant structure in another respect as well. It was built entirely with reinforced concrete. The discovery of concrete reinforced with iron or steel was more than just the invention of a new building material; indeed, it revolutionized the construction industry completely. Impressive structures made of reinforced concrete include the Municipal Theater in Freiburg, built in 1906/1907, and the synagogue built in the Westend district of central Frankfurt in 1907/1908. In these structures the reinforced concrete tended to be kept well hidden; it was used for the "internal construction", and conventional building
materials were used for the fa�ades.

Rapid progress in expanding the infrastructure

Another aspect that should not be forgotten is the innovative power unleashed by reinforced concrete in expanding the infrastructure. To take an example from the field of structural engineering, the railroad bridge that HOCHTIEF built in L�beck in 1906/1907 deserves mention, as are the locks and turbines on the River Weser near Bremen (1907/1909). Another civil engineering project was the locks on the River Main between Oberrad and Offenbach (1898-1899), east of Frankfurt.

New crafts and trades in the construction industry

The changes in the craft trades caused by new construction materials and building styles were easily recognizable, but at the same time a less obvious change was occurring in the skills and qualifications needed by building workers. A new trade emerged: the formwork-builder, forerunner of today's concrete-builder. It was also something new for construction companies to have workers on the payroll with technical qualifications who could operate and maintain the new items of equipment that were now necessary, such as pouring towers, rotating cranes, and the first machines for bending and cutting steel.

Grain store built in barely one year

Even today we can still be impressed by the speed at which these enormous structures were built - that is one of the other advantages of reinforced concrete construction. HOCHTIEF, for instance, needed only a year to build a grain store in Hamburg with a frontage 36 meters long. However, Philipp Helfmann did not live to see this breakneck rate of development in construction technology; when he passed away in 1899 his son-in-law, Hans Weidmann, took over the Chief Executive position.

First branches open

Weidmann continued to manage HOCHTIEF successfully, even though he had several crises to cope with. Nevertheless, he set the company on the right course for the future. Under his management HOCHTIEF gained a foothold in Berlin in 1906 and erected a number of buildings for the city council. In the same year HOCHTIEF also won two orders from the Ruhr industrial area, as it was now operating more and more on a national basis. In parallel with its expansion, it also set up its first branch operations. HOCHTIEF survived the first world war without suffering any major setbacks.