i'm a great fan of occasionally burning bridges, its great fun. the problem is that they tend to stay burnt. regardless, there is a bunch of bridges that caught my eye for various reasons...
I
was trying to find
Musmeci's bridge in Potenza:
its a lovely design, much unlike traditional bridges. whereas the shape of a regular bridge (more or less loosely) approaches an ideal distribution through the use of simplified geometry, this one is a tour de force in catenaries. through the use of double-curved surfaces it support the road more like caterpillar than a pillar. and that is to say nothing of its aesthetics or uniqueness.
it is covered further
on this blog dedicated to concrete
anyways, along the way i stumbled on another couple of things as well.. an impressive bridge a well, however much more geometrized:
this is what a regular bridge is like (obviously, i hear you say). anyways, the supporting curve works in much the same way as the one in Potenza, however considerably dematerialized and abstracted. the catenarily curved surfaces are here reduced to one main arch, supported by point supports spread along the length of the road. what rescues this particular bridge form banality is the split and/or tilted supports - notice how they're not vertical and how they join in together.
but returning to canteraies, a more recent example is the
puente cascara by west 8 in Madrid:
the support and supported (or object and subject, as it were) are flipped around in this case. as the usable surface is hung from the support rather than leaning onto it, the support begins to act as a dome. a considerably elongated dome, but still. the forces within the supports are those of compression in either case, with the load coming from under as opposed to above - and the pedestrians get a roof, yay!
and more pictures
on this other blog.
but when mentally meandering around bridges,
trnovo bridge in ljubljana by plecnik is worth mentioning as well:
other than its sculptural additions, rustic treatment and a very echoy underside, its party trick are trees. some 8 birches grace the bridge as a contiuation of a treelined street that leads up to it. apparently it is one of the oldest tree-populated bridges in the world
but then again, what's all the fuss about birdges, anyway?
