Gabriel Gruber - The Engineer

The Engineer

Gruber was an expert in hydrotechnology and architecture, and had also a basic knowledge of navigation and the history of seamanship. In 1769, he started teaching mathematics, mechanics, hydraulics and engineering at the School of Mechanical Engineering in Ljubljana (German Laibach). The school taught classes in shipbuilding, port devices and structures, and Gruber's wish was to build a dockyard nearby. That enterprise proved to be prohibitively expensive.

In early life, Gruber was a fanatical builder of model ships, and some of the teaching materials at the School of Mechanical Engineering were naval models of his that were made at the school between 1774 and 1783. Before being included in the Maritime Museum collection, these models were kept in the National Museum in Ljubljana. Some of Gruber's other workshop models had been in Pula, Croatia, but disappeared during the withdrawal of the Italian Army in 1943. Other Gruber models exhibited in the Maritime Museum are the Venetian battle galleon, the lagoon cargo galleon, the corvette, the schooner and a framework used during ship construction.

After the Suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV, in 1773, Gruber remained as engineer at the court of Emperor Joseph II until 1784. He was the architect and builder of Gruber Palace — a vast rococo edifice that was originally his mansion — used for his research in physics and hydraulics. It had also an astronomic observatory. The palace was bought in 1887 by the Carniolan Savings Bank and has housed the Slovenian archives since 1965.