Dan Cruickshank’s Bridges: Heroic Designs that Changed the World

Dan Cruickshank’s Bridges: Heroic Designs that Changed the World
Dan Cruickshank

Dan Cruickshank’s personal, passionate and learned journey into the very awe-inspiring architectural icons which have transformed culture, society, industry and landscapes throughout the world – bridges.Bridges define places. Imagine San Francisco without the Golden Gate Bridge, Manhattan without the Brooklyn Bridge, or Sydney without Sydney Harbour Bridge.Not only this, but they are spectacles of engineering, and have influenced the development of cultures, economies, environments and lives in more ways than we can count. Now, Dan Cruickshank looks at what bridges mean to us, and draws on some of his personal favourites from all over the world to tell the story of their architectural, cultural and aesthetic influence.Chapters include:EMPIRE – Bridges from the Roman and ancient worldNATURE AGAINST NATURE -Timber bridgesREVOLUTION – Pioneering structural designs from North America and EuropeUNITING PEOPLE – Bringing nations, cities, and communities togetherVISIONS – Contemporary structures

DAN

CRUICKSHANK’S

BRIDGES

Heroic Designs that Changed the World

Contents

Cover (#u564a38e0-81a9-58cd-84a5-b99d0b89b669)

Title Page (#u84337c40-1171-5289-a234-cc799b8c5401)

Preface

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE - EMPIRE

CHAPTER TWO - PIETY AND POLITICS

CHAPTER THREE - BRIDGES OF PARADISE

CHAPTER FOUR - INHABITED BRIDGES

CHAPTER FIVE - FORGING THE RAILWAY AGE

CHAPTER SIX - THE BIGGEST AND BOLDEST

CHAPTER SEVEN - STRUCTURAL PERFECTION

CHAPTER EIGHT - DEFINING PLACES

CHAPTER NINE - WORKS OF ART

CHAPTER TEN - MODERN MEGA-BRIDGES

Endnotes

Glossary

Select Biography

Index

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PREFACE

Great cities are built on great rivers and so, sooner or later, great bridges arise – bridges that not only connect and transport but also that play key roles in creating and defining the character, nature and aspirations of the city. Bridges, among all their many attributes, are incomparable place-makers, man-made landmarks that vie with the memorable works of nature. This is most obvious in cities and towns, but is also the case in more remote places where so often it is bridges that excite, that stir the imagination, as they soar above chasms and canyon, knife across vast tracts of water – as they dare and achieve the almost unimaginable.

Humanity’s inventiveness and structural ingenuity in the creation of bridges, in the evolution of structural systems, in the utiliz ation of technology and materials, is on a par with the engineered excellence of the Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe. Great bridges and great cathedrals both express – in the most sublime manner possible – the aspirations of their age, of the civilisation that built them. In Europe and America the genius of bridge building was – in the past – expressed most forcefully in mighty works, especially by the great railway bridges of the 19th century – utilitarian objects of supreme daring, forged of wrought-iron, steel, masonry in sweat and blood – that in the perfection of their function and their fitness for purpose achieved poetic beauty.

Now – in the early 21st century – there are few structural restraints that can stymie bridge-builders, there is little that engineers dare not aspire to, little that they cannot achieve. This has become the age of the mega-bridge where boundaries of ambition and scale are being regularly extended through ever growing technological prowess. This is impressive with unprecedented structures being realised. But often these mega-scale solutions are formulaic. Now, in many ways, the outpouring of ingenuity and creativity that distinguish the best bridges of the past is found not in huge creations but in smaller bridges where the challenge is not so much to achieve a crossing on an heroic scale but to do so in a manner that is consciously intended to delight and to give a place identity. In parallel to the rise of the mega-bridge is the evolution of the gem-like, small-scale bridge – often only a pedestrian bridge such as the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in England – that functions not just as a route but also as a work of art – as a creation that provides a promenade, that grants character, distinction and sense of place.

This book is a very personal journey into the world of bridges. I focus almost exclusively on those I’ve seen and experienced and so, naturally, the text dwells on those that exist rather than on great bridges that are no more, like Robert Stephenson’s seminal Britannia Bridge, Wales of 1846-50 that has been largely rebuilt and altered out of all recognition. This means, of course, that virtually all the works described can be seen – and enjoyed – by all who read this book and who – like me – are always thrilled and stirred by the sight of a good bridge.

Dan Cruickshank

August 2010.

INTRODUCTION

‘Always it is by bridges that we live.’

Philip Larkin, ‘Bridge for the Living’

From earliest times, mankind has built bridges, and still today bridge construction remains heroic, the most absolute expression of the beauty and excitement invoked by man-made constructions that are practical, functional, and fit for their purpose. Bridges that are leaps of faith and imagination, that pioneer new ideas and new materials, that appear both bold and minimal when set in the context of the raw natural power they seek to tame, are among the most moving objects ever made by man. They are an act of creation that challenge the gods, works that possess the very power of nature itself. They are objects in which beauty is the direct result of functional excellence, conceptual elegance and boldness of design and construction.

Like most people, I am addicted to bridges – to their raw, visceral punch, to their often astonishing scale and audacity, enthralled by their ability to transform a place and community and amazed by the way a bold bridge can make its mark on the landscape and in men’s minds, capture the imagination, engender pride and sense of identity and define a time and place. A great bridge – one that defies and tames nature – becomes almost in itself a supreme work of nature.

Bridges embody the essence of mankind’s structural ingenuity, they show how nature can be tamed by harnessing nature, how mighty chasms and roaring waters – the very embodiment of natural power and grandeur – can be spanned by utilizing the structural forces and principles inherent in nature; bridge design demonstrates – with startling and dramatic clarity – the structural potential of different materials and how these materials can be given added strength through design, through the use of forms that work in accordance with the structural laws of nature. For example, stone can be given additional load-bearing capacity and be used to bridge wider spans by being wrought to form well-calculated arches, and wood and metal can achieve great spans if used not as simple beams but when fabricated to form lattice-like, triangulated, trussed structures, where load-bearing capacity comes not through mass but from thoughtful engineering.

The most thrilling bridges are, in many ways, those not enhanced by superficial or extraneous ornament or cultural references. What moves and impresses is their honest expression of the materials and means of construction – their only ornament is a direct result of the way in which they are built and perform. A great bridge has an emotional impact, it has a sublime quality and a heroic beauty that moves even those who are not accustomed to having their senses inflamed by the visual arts.

Bridges are a great paradox, they not only use nature against nature, but magically the best examples do not defeat or damage nature but enhance it, and, in ways that are sometimes hard to fathom, achieve a deep harmony with their surroundings. For these reasons bridges have captured the imagination of people through the ages and now they are the only large-scale and radical examples of modern design and construction that the public generally applaud. All can see that bridges stand for something most significant, for the indomitable human spirit, the love of daring and of challenge, the power of invention.

Bridges, of course, inhabit worlds way beyond the merely physical and visual. Having excited human imagination they have, for centuries, possessed a powerful symbolism. They have been seen as links between this world and the next, as symbols of transition, and as metaphors for life and death on earth, and of the journey of the soul to the afterlife – the means of crossing the great divide. This symbolism and fancy have, occasionally, been reinforced by fact, for some bridges have, quite literally and rivetingly, been bridges between worlds and have possessed almost more meaning than physical substance. For example, the stone-arched Bridge of Sighs in Venice, built in 1602 by Antonio Contino (who had earlier worked for his uncle Antonio da Ponte on the Rialto Bridge, see page 158 (#litres_trial_promo)) that formed a covered way between the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace and the adjoining prison. It has long been assumed that the small windows in the bridge offered convicted prisoners their last view of Venice or of life. The idea of the bridge as a metaphor for transition or for a journey of the spirit seems universal. In fifteenth century Peru, the Inca saw the rainbow as a bridge between their homeland and heaven, while some of the indigenous people of Australia conceive of the link between worlds taking the form of the vast, arching and bridging body of the rainbow serpent, a creature as it happens that is most similar to the Lebe snake, the bridge-like ancestor of the Dogon people of Mali, Africa.

The Zhaozhou or Anji Bridge, Hebei province, China, completed in AD 605: an object in which form is dictated by function to achieve beauty and eternal elegance.

Detail of one of the arched and open spandrels of the Zhaozhou or Anji Bridge. This is the world’s oldest surviving open-spandrel, segmental arched bridge built in stone. The joints between the masonry blocks forming the arches are reinforced by wrought-iron bars or cramps.

For all these reasons bridges have been applauded as heroic, sacred – almost mystic – works by all cultures. Bridges of great scale or span were venerated in Medieval Europe, either as pious works that glorified God or as almost impossible acts of daring that could only have been achieved with the aid of the Devil (see page 94 (#litres_trial_promo)). Great bridges were, people assumed, creations that could only be completed through prayer and divine guidance or by the sale of the soul to dark forces. They were places where you could meet angels and saints as if conducting you to Heaven, or the Devil himself collecting his toll. Similarly in China: the truly remarkable Zhaozhou or Anji Bridge in Hebei province, built between 595 and 605 AD to the designs of Li Chun and the world’s oldest open-spandrel segmental arched masonry bridge, is particularly rich in myth, legend and stories of the supernatural. This is mainly because its construction methods and ambitious scale – its main arch of segmental forms spans a mighty 37.7 metres – astonished most contemporary observers. Li Chun achieved the wide span of the bridge by using 28 parallel and abutting arches, each formed with massive, precisely cut and wedged limestone voussoirs whose joints were strengthened with wrought-iron cramps or bars. The arch-topped open spandrels not only reduce the weight of the bridge without weakening it but also – by creating additional openings through its body – protect the bridge from being washed away by the force of unusually high and powerful flood waters. These novel design features and construction techniques gave the bridge great strength but also the flexibility necessary to withstand earthquakes.

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Li Chun – clearly a man of advanced practical know-how – was himself not ignorant of the worlds of magic and of the spirits. The bridge is of pure, simple and practical design yet the keystones at the crown of the main arch are embellished with carvings that show the leering and horned heads of the Taotie motif. These beings from the spirit world were intended to protect the bridge from floods and from the potentially malevolent spirits of the river that might resent the bridge, for it robbed them of some of their power over those mortals who wanted to cross the water. In a Taoist culture, where all is animated and nature is seen as the great guide and inspiration, everything is alive – not just the river but the stones from which the bridge is made and, indeed, the bridge itself.

One legend about the bridge is like those attached to many European medieval bridges of prodigious span or slender form: it was constructed by an inspired human, in this case the fifth century BC engineer and philosopher Lu Ban, working with the aid of spirits. Another legend is that two Taoist Immortals – perfected beings who are masters of time and space and travel between the earth and the distant stars – decided to test the strength of this unprecedented bridge by thundering across it in tandem. The bridge survived this ordeal just as it survived resentful water spirits and – perhaps more impressively – earthquakes and centuries of neglect. It still stands, still does the job for which it was built 1,400 years ago, and continues to inspire and astonish – a thing of perpetual delight and timeless beauty that contrives, despite all it has seen and suffered, to look eternally youthful and modern.