Professor in Stuttgart

The tradition of third-party funding begins in Stuttgart ...

Bach lacked the facilities in Stuttgart to put his training philosophy into practice and to conduct practical experiments on solidity.

"The lack of facilities for testing and investigating the properties of construction materials had been painfully felt by the members of our college as early as the seventies. Repeated negotiations on this matter had been held without leading to a satisfactory fulfilment of extant requirements via the normal channels, i.e. by establishing a materials testing institute with state funding. This was all the more regrettable as the neighbouring Munich College of Technology had had a testing institute equipped with extensive facilities since 1871, and the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich had been given an institute of this kind in the year 1879."

Bach needed many years until, in 1907, he could move into his – in his own words - "newly built and excellently equipped materials testing institute" in Stuttgart-Berg. It had been founded back in 1884 in existing buildings.

In the middle of the recession this development had only been made possible by Bach's leaving the traditional funding route. He actively organised a publicity campaign for his discipline and his ideas. Bach persuaded the Württemberg Engineers' Association (WIV) to lobby for the surplus remaining from the State Trade Exhibition to be used to found the Materials Testing Institute. A sum of 10,000 marks was granted, supplemented by a subsidy of 6,000 marks from the state coffers.