Sir Ove Arup (1895–1988) was a British engineer, born in Newcastle to a Danish father and a Norwegian mother, the founder of the firm Arup and among the foremost structural engineers working with architects in his time. He studied philosophy and then engineering at the Technical University of Denmark and came to London in 1923 for the firm Christiani & Nielsen. In the 1930s he was structural consultant to Berthold Lubetkin's Tecton on the Penguin Pool at London Zoo and Highpoint I. During the war he helped design the Mulberry harbours for D-Day. He set up Arup and Partners in 1946 and was design engineer of the Sydney Opera House.
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Kingsgate Bridge in Durham (1963), the firm's first bridge, was designed and built under his personal supervision; it was the last structure he designed, and his ashes were scattered from it. Beside it stands Dunelm House (1966), the student union completed under his supervision, a listed brutalist building. Preston Bus Station (1969), designed by Building Design Partnership, was engineered by Ove Arup & Partners, whose curved car-park balconies came about when acceptable finishes for a straight wall proved too expensive.
