The History and Aesthetic Development of Bridges

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Chapter 1 doi: 10: 10.1680/icembe.63051.0001
The history and aesthetic CONTENTS
development of bridges
The early history of bridges 1
Eighteenth-century
bridge building 6
D BennettDavid Bennett Associates The past 200 years: bridge
development in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries 8
This chapter on the history and aesthetic development of bridges looks at the Aesthetic design in bridges 14
evolution and progress of bridges from their earliest conception by humans.
Following a timeframe from the Palaeolithic period to the present, all the various
materials employed in construction are examined in relation to bridge
development. Aesthetic design in bridges – especially in the twentieth century
– is looked at in detail and the chapter ends with an essay on the search for
aesthetic understanding in bridge design.
The early history of bridges create a level platform. For crossings over wide rivers, support
The age of timber and stone piers were formed from piles of rocks in the stream. Sometimes
stakes were driven into the riverbed to form a circle and then
The bridge has been a feature of human progress and evolution filled with stones, creating a crude cofferdam. Around 4000 bc,
ever since the first hunter-gatherers became curious about the early Bronze Age ‘lake dwellers’ were living in timber houses
fertile land, animals and fruit flourishing on trees on the other built out over the lakes, in the area that is now Switzerland.
side of a river or gorge. Early humans also had to devise ways To ensure that their houses did not sink early, humans evolved
to cross streams and deep gorges to survive. A boulder or two ways to drive timber piles into the lake bed. From this discov-
dropped into a shallow stream works well as a stepping stone, ery came the timber pile and the trestle bridge.
as many of us have discovered, but for deeper flowing streams Primitive bridges were essentially post and lintel structures,
a tree dropped between banks is a more successful solution. So either made from timber or stone or a combination of both.
the primitive idea of a simple beam bridge was born. Sometime later, the simple rope and bamboo suspension bridge
Today, in the forests of Peru and the foothills of the Hima was devised; these developed into the rope suspension bridges
layas, crude rope bridges span deep gorges and fast-flowing that are in regular use today in the mountain reaches of China,
streams to maintain pathways from village to village for hill Peru, Columbia, India and Nepal.
tribes. Such primitive rope bridges evolved from the vines and It took humans until 4000 bc to discover the secrets of arch
creepers that early humans would have used to swing through construction. In the Tigris–Euphrates valley the Sumerians
the forest and to cross streams. Here is the second basic idea of began building with adobe – a sun-dried mud brick – for their
a bridge – the suspension bridge. palaces, temples, ziggurats and city defences. Stone was not
For thousands of years during the Palaeolithic period, which plentiful in this region and had to be imported from Persia,
lasted to around 10 000 bc, we know that humans were living so it was used sparingly. The brick module dictated the con-
as nomads, hunting and gathering food. Slowly it dawned on struction principles employed, to scale any height and to bridge
early humans that instead of following herds of deer or buffalo, any span. And through trial and error it was the arch and the
or foraging for plant food haphazardly, things could be better barrel vault that was devised to build their monuments and
managed if the animals were kept in herds nearby and plants grand architecture at the peak of their civilisation. The ruins of
were grown and harvested in fields. the magnificent barrel-vaulted brick roof at Ptsephon and the
In this period, the simple log bridge served many purposes. Ishtar Gate at Babylon, are a reminder of Mesopotamian skill
It needed to be sufficiently broad and strong to take cattle, a and craftsmanship. By around 2475 bc, the Egyptians had also
level and solid platform to transport food and other materials, mastered the arch and used it frequently in constructing reliev-
and movable so that it could be withdrawn to prevent enemies ing arches and passageways for their temples and pyramids.
from using it. Narrow tree trunk bridges were inadequate and Without doubt, the arch is one of the greatest discoveries
were replaced by double log beams spaced wider apart, on of humankind. The arch principle was the essential element
which short lengths of logs were placed and tied down to create in all building and bridge technology over later centuries. Its
a pathway. The pathways were planed by sharp scraping tools dynamic and expressive form gave rise to some of the greatest
and any gaps between them plugged with branches and earth to bridge structures ever built.
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ice | manuals The history and aesthetic development of bridges
Earliest records of bridges world has ever seen, such as the Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus,
the cities of Ephesus, Miletus and Delphi, to name but a few.
The earliest written record of a bridge appears to be of a bridge They were quite capable of building arches like their forbears
built across the Euphrates around 600 bc as described by the Etruscans when necessary. There are examples of Greek
Herodotus, the fifth century Greek historian. The bridge linked voussoir arch construction that compare with the Beehive
the palaces of ancient Babylon on either side of the river. It tombs at Mycenae, such as the ruins of an arch bridge with a
had 100 stone piers, which supported wooden beams of cedar, 27 ft span at Pergamon in Turkey.
cypress and palm to form a carriageway 35 ft wide and 600 ft
long. Herodotus mentions that the floor of the bridge would be The Romans
removed every night as a precaution against invaders.
In China, it would appear that bridge building evolved at a The Romans, on the other hand, were masters of practical
faster pace than the ancient civilisations of Sumer and Egypt. building skills. They were a nation of builders who took arch
Records exist from the time of Emperor Yao in 2300 bc on the construction to a science and high art form during their domi
traditions of bridge building. Early Chinese bridges included nation of Mediterranean Europe. Their influence on bridge
pontoons or floating bridges and probably looked like the building technology and architecture has been profound. They
primitive pontoon bridges built in China today. Boats called conquered the world as it was then known, built roadways,
sampans about 30 ft long were anchored side by side in the canals and cities that linked Europe to Asia and North Africa,
direction of the current and then bridged by a walkway. The and produced the first true bridge engineers in the history of
other bridge forms were the simple post and lintel beam, the humankind. The Romans understood that the establishment
cantilever beam and rope suspension cradles. Timber beam and maintenance of their empire depended on efficient and
bridges, like those of Europe, were often supported on rows of permanent communications. Building roads and bridges was
timber piles of soft fir wood called ‘foochow poles’, so called therefore a high priority.
because they were grown in Foochow. A team of builders The Romans also realised, as did the Chinese in later cen-
would hammer the poles into the riverbed using a cylindrical turies, that timber structures, particularly those embedded in
stone fitted with bamboo handles. A short crosspiece was fixed water, had a short life, and were prone to decay, insect infes-
between pairs of poles to form the supports that would carry tation and fire hazards. Prestigious buildings and important
timber boards, which were then covered in clay to form the bridge structures were therefore built of stone. But the Romans
pathway over the river. had also learnt to preserve their timber structures by soaking
In later centuries, Chinese bridge building was dominated timber in oil and resin, as a protection against dry rot, and
by the arch, which they copied and adapted from the Middle coating them with alum, for fireproofing. They learnt that hard-
East as they travelled the silk routes that opened during the Han wood was more durable than softwoods, and that oak was best
dynasty, around 100 ad. for substructure work in the ground and alder for piles in water,
Through Herodotus, we learn about the Persian ruler Xerxes while fir, cypress and cedar were best for the superstructure
and the vast pontoon bridge he built, consisting of two paral- above ground.
lel rows of 360 boats, tied to each other and to the bank and They understood the different qualities of the stone that they
anchored to the bed of the Hellespont, which is the Dardanelles quarried. Tufa, a yellow volcanic stone, was good in compres-
today. Xerxes wanted to get his army of 2 million men and sion but had to be protected from weathering by stucco – a
horses to the other bank to meet the Greeks at Thermopylae. It limewash. Travertine was harder and more durable and could
took 7 days and 7 nights to get the army across the river. Sadly be left exposed, but was not very fire resistant. The most
for Xerxes, his massive army was defeated at the Battle of durable materials, such as marble, had to be imported from
Thermopylae in 480 bc, the remnants of which retreated back distant regions of Greece and even as far away as Egypt and
over the pontoon bridge to fight another day. The Persians were Asia Minor (Turkey). The Romans’ big breakthrough in mater
great bridge builders and built many arch, cantilever and beam ial science was the discovery of lime mortar and pozzolanic
bridges. There is a bridge still standing in Khuzestan at Dezful cement, which was based on the volcanic clay that was found
over the river Dez, which could date anywhere from 350 bc in the village of Puzzoli. They used it as mortar for laying
to 400 ad. The bridge consists of 20 voussoir arches, which bricks or stones and often mixed it with burnt lime and stones
are slightly pointed and has a total length of 1250 ft. Above to create a waterproof concrete.
the level of the arch springing are small semicircular spandrel The Romans realised that voussoir arches could span farther
arches, which give the entire bridge an Islamic look, hence the than any unsupported stone beam, and would be more dura-
uncertainty of its Persian origins. ble and robust than any other structure. The Romans always
The Greeks did not build many bridges over their illustrious built semicircular arches, with the thrust from the arch going
history, being a seafaring nation who lived on self-contained directly down on to the support pier. This meant that piers had
islands and in feudal groups scattered across the Mediterra- to be large. If they were built wide enough, at about one-third
nean. They exclusively used post and lintel construction in of the arch span, then any two piers could support an arch
evolving a classical order in their architecture, and built some without shoring or propping from the sides. In this way it was
of the most breathtaking temples, monuments and cities the possible to build a bridge from shore to shore, one span at a
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The history and aesthetic development of bridges ice | manuals
time, without having to form the entire substructure across the It was the Church that had preserved and developed both
river before starting the arches. They developed a method of spiritual understanding and the practical knowledge of build-
constructing the foundation on the riverbed within a cofferdam ing during this period. And, not surprisingly, bridge building,
or watertight dry enclosure, formed by a double ring of timber among many skills and crafts, became associated with it.
piles with clay packed into the gap between them to act as a A group of friars of the Altopascio order near Lucca in
water seal. The water inside the cofferdam was then pumped northern Italy lived in a large dwelling called the Hospice of
out and the foundation substructure built within it. The massive St James. The friars were skilled at carpentry and masonry,
piers often restricted the width of the river channel, increas- having built their own priory, no doubt helping with others.
ing the speed of flow past the piers and increasing the scour The surrounding countryside was wild and dangerous, and the
action. To counter this, the piers were built with cutwaters, refuge they built was a popular resting place for pilgrims and
which were pointed to cleave the water so it would not scour travellers using the ancient road from Tuscany to Rome. In
the foundations. 1244, Emperor Frederick II required that the hospice build a
The stone arch was built on a wooden framework built out proper bridge across the White Arno for pilgrims and travel-
from the piers and known as centring. The top surface was lers. With their skills and practical knowledge, the friars set
shaped to the exact semicircular profile of the arch. Parallel up a cooperative to build the bridge. After completing the
arches of stones were placed side by side to create the full bridge over the White Arno, their fame spread through Italy
width of the roadway. The semicircular arch meant that all the and France. This sparked off an interest in bridge building in
stones were cut identically and that no mortar was needed to other ecclesiastical orders. In France, a group of Benedictine
bind them together once the keystone was locked into position. monks established the religious order of the Frères Pontiffs
The compression forces in the arch ensured complete stabil- (brothers of the bridge) to build a bridge over the Durance.
ity of the span. The Romans did build many timber bridges, And so the ‘brothers of the bridge’ order became established
but these have not stood the test of time, and today all that among Benedictine monks, spreading from France to England
remain of their achievement after 2000 years are a handful of by the thirteenth century. The purpose of the order, apart from
stone bridges in Rome, and a few scattered examples in France its spiritual duties, was to aid travellers and pilgrims, to build
(see Figure 1.1), Spain, North Africa, Turkey and other former bridges along pilgrimage routes or to establish boats for their
Roman colonies. But what still stand today, be they bridges or use, and to receive them in hospices built for them on the bank.
aqueducts, rank among the most inspiring and noble of bridge The brothers of the bridge were great teachers, who strove
structures ever built, considering the limitations of Roman to emulate and continue the magnificent work of the Roman
technology. bridge builders.
The most famous and legendary bridge of this period was
built by the Order of the Saint Jacques du Haut Pas, whose
great hospice once stood on the banks of the Seine in Paris
on the site of the present church of that name. They built
the Pont Esprit over the Rhône but their masterpiece was the
neighbouring bridge at Avignon. It was truly a magnificent
and record-breaking achievement for its time. Its beauty has
inspired writers, poets and musicians over the centuries. Sadly
all that remains today at Avignon are just four out of the 20
spans of the bridge and the chapel where the supposed creator
of the bridge was interred and later canonised as Saint Bénézet.
While the Pont d’Avignon was being built in France,
another monk of the Benedictine order in England, Peter of
Colechurch, was planning the building of the first masonry
Figure 1.1 Pont du Gard, Nîmes bridge over the Thames. A campaign for funds was launched
with enthusiasm; it was not only the rich townspeople, the
merchants and money lenders, who made generous donations,
The Dark Ages and the brothers but also the common people of London gave freely. Until the
of the bridge sixteenth century, a list of donors could be seen hanging in
the chapel on the bridge. The structure that was built in 1206
When the Roman Empire collapsed, it seemed that the light of was Old London Bridge (see Figure 1.2) and ranks after the
progress around the world went out for a long while. The Huns, Pont d’Avignon in fame. It was such a popular bridge that
Visigoths, Saxons, Mongols and Danes did little building in buildings and warehouses were soon erected on it. It became
their raids across Europe and Asia to plunder and destroy. It so fashionable a location that the young noblemen of Queen
was left to the spread of Christianity and the strength of the Elizabeth’s household resided in a curious four-storey timber
Church to start the next boom in road building and bridge building imported piece by piece from the Netherlands, called
building, around 1000 ad. Nonsuch House.

added later, that was a link between the royal and government
palaces, the Uffizi and Pitti Palaces. The piers, which are 20 ft
thick, support the overhanging building as well as the bridge
spans. The most innovative features of the bridge are the arch
spans, which are extremely shallow compared with any previ-
ous arches ever built, or indeed many contemporary European
bridges. Each span was built as a segmental arch; this is unu-
sual for bridge builders of that period because they could not
possibly have determined the thrust from the arches mathemat-
ically with the level of knowledge they possessed. How they
achieved this is not known (as is also the case for the segmental
arches of Pont d’Avignon). The architect of this radical design
was Taddeo Gaddi, who had studied under the great painter
Figure 1.2 Old London Bridge Giotto, and was regarded as one of the great names of the
Italian Renaissance.
Towns continued to sponsor and promote the building of
stronger and better bridges and roads. They did not always get The Renaissance
the brothers of the bridge to build them, because they were
often committed to other projects for many years in advance. Not since the days of Homer, Aristotle and Archimedes in
Instead, guilds of master masons and carpenters were formed Hellenistic times have such great feats of discovery in science
and spread across Europe offering their services. Even govern- and mathematics, and such works of art and architecture been
ment officials were united in this community enterprise and achieved, as during the Renaissance. Modern science was born
began to grasp the initiative and drive for better road and bridge in this period through the enquiring genius of Copernicus, Da
networks across the country (Figure 1.3 shows an example of a Vinci, Francis Bacon and Galileo, and in art and architecture
medieval fortified bridge). Soon the vestiges of the Dark Ages through Michelangelo, Brunelleschi and Palladio. During
and feudalism were transformed to the age of enlightenment the Renaissance there was a continual search for the truth,
and the Renaissance. The Ponte de Vecchio in Florence, built explanations of natural phenomena, greater self-awareness
towards the end of this period, marks the turning point of the and rigorous analysis of Greek and Roman culture. Bridge
Dark Ages. It was a covered bridge erected in 1345, lined building, particularly in Italy, was regarded as a high art form.
with jewellery shops and galleries, with an upper passageway Much emphasis was placed on decorative order and pleasing
proportions, as well as the stability and permanence of its con-
struction. Bridge design was architect-driven for the first time,
with Da Vinci, Palladio, Brunelleschi and even Michelangelo
all experimenting with the possibilities of new bridge forms.
The most significant contribution of the Renaissance was the
invention of the truss system, developed by Palladio from the
simple king post and queen post roof truss, and the founding
of the science of structural analysis, with the first book ever
written on the subject Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche,
intorno a due nuove scienze (Discourses and Mathematical
Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences), published by
Galileo Galilei in 1638.
Palladio did not build many bridges in his lifetime; many of
his truss bridge ideas were considered too daring and radical
and his work lay forgotten until the eighteenth century. His
great treatise Four Books of Architecture, published in 1520,
in which he applied four different truss systems for building
bridges, was destined to influence bridge builders in future
years, when the truss replaced the arch as the principal form
of construction. Bridge builders during the Renaissance were
clever material technologists who were preoccupied with the
art of bridge construction and how they could build with less
labour and materials. It was a time of inflation, when the price
of building materials and labour was escalating. The most
Figure 1.3 Monnow Bridge, Monmouth – an example of a medieval famous bridge builders in this era were Ammannati, Da Ponte
fortified bridge and Du Cerceau.

Which Renaissance bridge is the most beautiful: Florence’s The Pont Neuf has stood now for 400 years and was the
Santa Trinita, Venice’s Rialto or Paris’s Pont Neuf? Arguably centre of trade and the principal access to and from the crowded
the most famous and celebrated bridge of the Renaissance was island when it was built. The booths and stalls on the bridge
the Rialto bridge designed by Antonio Da Ponte in Venice. became so popular that all sorts of traders used it, including
John Ruskin (1853) said of the Rialto: ‘The best building booksellers, pastry cooks, jugglers and peddlers. They crowded
raised in the time of the Grotesque Renaissance; very noble in the roadway until some 200 stalls and booths were packed into
its simplicity, in its proportions, and its masonry.’ Its designer every niche along the pavement. The longer left bank half of
was 75 years old when he won the contract to build the Rialto, the Pont Neuf was extensively reconstructed in 1850 to exactly
and was 79 when it was finished. It has a single segmental arch the same details, after many years of repairs and attention to its
span of 87 ft 7 in, which rises 25 ft 11 in at the crown. The bridge poor foundations. The right bank half, with the shorter spans,
is 75 ft 3 in wide, with a central roadway, shops on both sides has been left intact. The entire bridge has been cleared of all
and two small paths on the outside, next to the parapets. Two stalls and booths and is used today as a road bridge.
sets of arches, six each side of the large central arch, s upport The finest examples of late French Renaissance bridges built
the roof and enclose the 24 shops within it. It took three and during the seventeenth century are the Pont Royale and Pont
half years to build and kept all the stonemasons in the city fully Marie, both of which are still standing today. The Pont Royale
occupied in work for two of those years. (Figure 1.5) was the first bridge in Paris to feature elliptical
Equally innovative and skilful bridge construction was pro- arches and the first to use an open caisson to provide a dry
gressing across Europe. In the state of Bohemia, across the working area in the riverbed. The foundations for the bridge
Moldau at Prague, was built the longest bridge over water, the piers were designed and constructed under the supervision of
Karlsbrücke in 1503, and the most monumental and imperial François Romain, a preaching brother from the Netherlands,
bridge of the Renaissance. It took a century and half to com- who was an expert in solving difficult foundation problems.
pletely finish. It was adorned with statues of saints and martyrs Both the bridge architect François Mansart and the builder
and terminates on each bank with an imposing tower gateway. Jacques Gabriel called on Romain after they ran into founda-
In France at this time, a fine example of the early French tion problems. Romain introduced dredging in the preparation
Renaissance, the Pont Neuf, was being designed (Figure 1.4). of the riverbed for the caisson, using a machine that he had
It was the second stone bridge to be built in Paris; although its developed. After excavations were finished, the caisson was
design and construction did not represent a great leap forward sunk to the bed, but the top was kept above the water level. The
in bridge building, it occupies a special place in Parisian hearts. water was then pumped out and the masonry work of the pier
Designed by Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau, the two arms of was built inside the dry chamber. The five arch spans of the
the Pont Neuf that join the Île de la Cité to the left and right Pont Royale increase in span towards the centre and, although
banks was a massive undertaking. Although all the arches are it has practically no ornamentation, the bridge blends beauti-
semicircular and not segmental, no two spans are alike, as they fully into its river setting and the bankside environment.
vary from 31 to 61 ft in span and also differ on the downstream
and upstream sides of each arch and were built on a skew of
10%. Du Cerceau wanted the bridge to be a true unencumbered
thoroughfare, bereft of any houses and shops. But the people
of Paris demanded shops and houses, which resulted in modi-
fication to the few short-span piers that had been constructed.
Figure 1.5 Pont Royale, Paris (courtesy of J Crossley)
The Renaissance brought improvements in both the art and

science of bridge building. For the first time, bridges began to
be regarded as civic works of art. The master bridge builder had
to be an architect, structural theorist and practical builder, all
rolled into one. Without doubt the finest exhibition of engineer-
ing skills in this era was the slender elliptical arched bridge of
Figure 1.4 Pont Neuf, Paris Santa Trinita in Florence, designed by Bartolomeo Ammannati

in 1567. Many scholars are still mystified to this day as to and Western Civilization (1951), ‘we could not further refine
how Ammannati arrived at such pleasing, slender curves to Perronet’s design.’
the arches. With France under the inspired leadership of Gabriel and
then Perronet, the rest of Europe could only admire and copy
these great advances in bridge building. In England, a young
Eighteenth-century bridge building Scotsman, John Rennie, was making his mark, following in
The Age of Reason the footsteps of the great French engineers. He was regarded
as the natural successor to Perronet, who was a very old man
In this period, masonry arch construction reached perfection, when Rennie started his career. Rennie was a brilliant mathe-
owing to a momentous discovery by Perronet and the inno- matician, a mechanical genius and a pioneering civil engineer.
vative construction techniques of John Rennie. Just as the In his early years, he worked for James Watt to build the first
masonry arch reached its zenith 7000 years after the first crude steam-powered grinding mills at Albion Mills in London, and
corbelled arch in Mesopotamia, it was to be threatened by later designed canals and drainage systems to drain the marshy
a new building material – iron – and the timber truss, as the fens of Lincolnshire. He built his first bridge in 1779 across the
principal construction for bridges in the future. Tweed at Kelso. It was a modest affair with a pier width-to-
This was the era when civil engineering as a profession was span ratio of 1:6 and a conservative elliptical arch span. Rennie
born, when the first school of engineering was established picked up the theory of bridge design from textbooks and from
in Paris at the École de Paris during the reign of Louis XV. studies and discussion about arches and voussoirs with his
The director of the school was Gabriel, who had designed the mentor John Robison of Edinburgh University. He designed
Pont Royal. He was given the responsibility of collecting and bridges with a flat, level roadway rather than the characteristic
assimilating all the scientific information and knowledge there hump of most English bridges. This was a radical departure
was on the science and history of bridges, buildings, roads from convention, and his bridges were much admired by all
and canals. the townspeople, farmers and traders who transported material
With such a vast bank of collective knowledge, it was inev- and cattle across them. The first bridge at Kelso was a modest
itable that building architecture and civil engineering should forerunner to the many famous bridges that Rennie went on to
be separated into two fields of expertise. It was suggested that build, namely Waterloo, Southwark and New London Bridge
it was not possible for one man, in his brief life, to master the (Figure 1.6). What then was Rennie’s contribution to bridge
essentials of both subjects. Moreover, it also became clear that building? For Waterloo Bridge, the centring for the arches was
the broad education received in civil engineering at the Corps assembled on the shore and then floated out on barges into
des Ponts et Chaussées at the École de Paris was not suffi- position. So well and efficiently did this system work that the
cient for the engineering of bridge projects. More specialised framework for each span could be put into position in a week.
training was needed in bridge engineering. In 1747, the first This was a fast erection speed and as a result Rennie was able
school of bridge engineering was founded in Paris at the his- to halve bridge construction time. So soundly were Rennie’s
toric École des Ponts et Chaussées. The founder of the school bridges built that 40 years later Waterloo Bridge had settled
was Trudaine, and the first teacher and director was a brilliant only 5 in. Rennie’s semi-elliptical arches, sound engineering
young engineer named Jean-Rudolphe Perronet. methods and rapid assembly technique, together with Perro
Perronet has been called the father of modern bridge engi- net’s segmental arch, divided pier and understanding of arch
neering for his inventive genius and design of the greatest thrust, changed bridge design theory for all time.
masonry arch bridges of that century. In his hands, the masonry
arch reached perfection. The arch he chose was the curve of
a segment of a circle of larger radius, instead of the familiar
three-centred arch. To express the slenderness of the arch, he
raised the haunch of the arch considerably above the piers. He
was the first person to realise that the horizontal thrust of the
arch was carried through the spans to the abutments and that
the piers, in addition to carrying the vertical load, also had to
resist the difference between the thrusts of the adjacent spans.
He deduced that if the arch spans were about equal and all the
arches were in place before the centring was removed, the piers
could be greatly reduced in size.
What remains of Perronet’s great work? Only his last bridge,
the glorious Pont de la Concorde in Paris, built when he was
in his eighties. It is one of the most slender and daring stone
arch bridges ever built in the world. ‘Even with modern analy
sis,’ suggests Professor James Finch, author of Engineering Figure 1.6 John Rennie’s New London Bridge – under construction

The carpenter bridges Colossus was the longest wooden bridge in the USA, having a
clear span of 304 ft. Fire destroyed the bridge in 1838. It was
The USA, with its vast expansion of roads and waterways, later replaced by Charles Ellet’s pioneering suspension bridge.
following in the wake of commercial growth in the eighteenth Theodore Burr was the most famous of the illustrious tri-
century, was to become the home of the timber bridge in the umvirate. Burr developed a timber truss design based on the
nineteenth century. simple king and queen post truss of Palladio. He came closest
The USA had no tradition or history of building with stone, to building the first true truss bridge; however, it proved unsta-
so early bridge builders used the most plentiful and economical ble under moving loads. Burr then strengthened the truss with
materials that were available: timber. The Americans produced an arch. It is significant that here the arch was added to the truss
some of the most remarkable timber bridge structures ever rather than the other way round. Burr arch trusses were quick
seen, but they were not the first to pioneer such structures. The to assemble and modest in cost to build, and for a time were the
Grubenmann brothers of Switzerland were the first to design most popular timber bridge form in the USA.
quasi-timber truss bridges in the eighteenth century. The Wet- By 1820, the truss principle had been well explored and,
tingen Bridge over the Limmat just west of Zürich was consid- although the design theory was not understood in practice, it
ered their finest work. The bridge combined the arch and truss had been tested to the limit. It was left to Ithiel Town to develop
principle, with seven oak beams bound close together to form and build the first true truss bridge, which he patented and
a catenary arch to which a timber truss was fixed. The span called the Town lattice. It was a true truss because it was free
of the Wettingen was 309 ft, far exceeding any other timber from arch action and any horizontal thrust. It was so simple to
bridge span. build that it could be nailed together in a few days and cost next
Of course, numerous timber beam and trestle bridges were to nothing compared with other alternatives. Town promoted
built in Europe and the USA. However, to bridge deep gorges, his timber structure with the slogan ‘built by the mile and cut
broad rivers and boggy estuaries, such as those that ran through off by the yard’. He did not build the Town lattice truss bridges
North America, and support the heavy loads of chuckwagons himself, but issued licences to local builders to use his patent
and cattle, something more robust was needed. The answer, design instead. He collected a dollar for every foot built, and
according to the Grubenmanns, was a timber truss arch bridge, two if a bridge was built without his permission. By doubling
but it was not a true truss. the planking and wooden pins to fasten the structure together,
Palmer, Wernwag and Burr, the so-called American carpen- Town made his truss carry the early railroads.
ter bridge builders, designed more by intuition than by calcula-
tion and developed the truss arch to span farther than any other The railroad and the truss bridge
wooden construction. This was the third and last of the three
basic bridge forms to be discovered. The first person who made With the arrival of the railways in the USA, bridge building
the truss arch bridge a success in the USA and who patented continued to develop in two separate ways. One school contin-
his truss design was Timothy Palmer. In 1792, Palmer built a ued to evolve stronger and leaner timber truss structures while
bridge consisting of two trussed arches over the Merrimack; it the other experimented with cast iron and wrought iron, which
looked very like one of Palladio’s truss designs, except that the slowly replaced timber as the principal construction material.
arch was the dominant supporting structure. Palmer’s ‘Perma- The first patent truss to incorporate iron in a timber struc-
nent Bridge’ over the Schuylkill, built in 1806, was his most ture was the Howe truss. It had top and bottom chords and
celebrated. When the bridge was finished, the president of the diagonal bracing in timber, with vertical members of iron rods
bridge company suggested that it would be a good idea to cover in tension. This basic design, with modifications, continued
the bridge to preserve the timber from rot and decay in the right into the next century. The first fully designed truss was
future. Palmer went further than that and timbered the sides the Pratt truss, which reversed the forces of the Howe truss by
as well, completely enclosing the bridge. Thus, America’s dis- putting the vertical timber members in compression and the
tinctive covered bridge was established. Enclosing the bridge iron diagonal members in tension. The Whipple truss, designed
stopped snow getting in and piling up on the deck, which would in 1847, was the first all-iron truss – a bowstring truss – with
have caused it to collapse from the extra load. the top chord and vertical compression members made from
Wernwag was a German immigrant from Pennsylvania, who cast iron and the bottom chord and diagonal bracing members
built 29 truss-type bridges in his lifetime. His designs integrated made from wrought iron. Later, Fink, Bollman, Bow and Haupt
the arch and truss into one composite structure rather more in the USA, along with Cullman and Warren in Europe, devel-
successfully than Palmer’s. Wernwag’s famous bridge was oped the truss to a fine art, incorporating wire strand cable,
the Colossus over the Schuylkill just upstream from P almer’s timber and iron to form lightweight but strong bridges that
‘Permanent Bridge’; this was composed of two pairs of parallel could carry railways. Figures 1.7 and 1.8 show examples of
arches, linked by a framing truss, which carried the roadway. various truss types.
The truss itself acted as bracing reinforcement and consisted The stresses and fatigue loading from moving trains in the
of heavy verticals and light diagonals. The diagonal elements late nineteenth century caused catastrophic failure of many
were remarkable because they were iron rods, and were the timber truss and iron truss bridges. The world was horrified
first iron rods to be used in a long-span bridge. In its day, the by the tragedy and death toll from collapsing bridges. At one

technology and bridge building. Many new and daring ideas

were tried and tested, and many innovative bridge forms were
built. There were some spectacular failures. As many as seven
major new bridge types were to emerge during this period:
the box girder, the cantilever truss girder, the reinforced and
prestressed concrete arch, the steel arch, glued segmental con-
struction, cable-stayed bridges and stressed-ribbon bridges.
Figure 1.7 Example of the Bollman truss

The past 200 years: bridge
development in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries
The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain at the end
of the eighteenth century, gradually spread and brought with it
huge changes in all aspects of everyday life. New forms of bulk
transportation, by canal and rail, were developed to keep pace
with the increasing exploitation of coal and the manufacture of
textiles and pottery. Coal fuelled the hot furnaces to provide
the high temperatures to smelt iron. Henry Bessemer invented
a method of producing crude steel alloy by blowing hot air
over smelted iron. Siemens and Martins refined this process
further to produce the low carbon steels of today. High temper-
atures were also essential in the production of cement, which
Joseph Aspdin discovered by burning limestone and clay on his
kitchen stove in Leeds in 1824. Wood and stone were gradually
replaced by cast iron and wrought iron construction, which in
turn was replaced by first steel and then concrete – the two
primary materials of bridge building in the twentieth century.
Growing towns and expanding cities demanded continuous
improvement and extension of the road, canal and railway
infrastructure. The machine age introduced the steam engine,
the internal combustion engine, factory production lines,
domestic appliances, electricity, gas, processed food and the
tractor. Faster assembly of bridges was essential, and this meant
prefabricating lightweight, but tough, bridge components. The
heavy steam engines and longer goods trains imposed larger
stresses on bridge structures than ever before. Bridges had to
be stronger and more rigid in construction and yet had to be
faster to assemble to keep pace with progress. Connections
Figure 1.8 US patent truss types: (a) Wilton, 1839; (b) Howe, 1844; (c) had to be stronger and more efficient. The nut and bolt were
Stone–Howe, 1849; (d) Pratt, 1844; (e) Hassard, 1846; (f) Adams, 1848 replaced by the rivet, which was replaced by the high-strength
friction grip bolt and the welded connection.
stage, as many as one bridge in every four used by the railway The arrival of the automobile resulted in a road network that
network in the USA had a serious defect or had collapsed. eventually criss-crossed the entire countryside from town to
By the turn of the century, the iron truss railway bridges had city, over mountain ranges, valleys, streams, rivers, estuaries
been replaced by stronger and more durable structures. Design and seas. Even bigger and better bridges were now needed to
codes and safety regulations were drawn up and professional connect islands to the mainland and countries to continents in
associations were incorporated to train, regulate and monitor order to open up major trading routes. The continuous search
the quality of bridge engineers. and development for high-strength materials of steel, concrete,
In the nineteenth century, the truss, the last of the three prin- carbon fibre and aramids, today combined with sophisticated
cipal bridge forms, had at long last been discovered. With the computer analysis and dynamic testing of bridge structures
coming of the Industrial Revolution, and the rapid growth of against earthquakes, hurricane wind and tidal flows, has ena-
the machine age – dominated by the railway and motor car bled bridges to span even farther. In the last two centuries,
– a huge burden was placed on civil engineering, material bridge spans have leapt from 350 ft to over 6000 ft. This is the

age of the mighty suspension bridge, the elegant cable-stayed 1790 Buildwas Bridge, the second cast iron bridge built in
bridge, the steel arch truss and the glued segmental and canti- Coalbrookdale, designed by Thomas Telford, using
lever box girder bridges. only half the weight of cast iron of the Iron Bridge.
The key events and achievements of this large output of 1807 James Finlay builds first elemental suspension bridge –
bridge building are briefly summarised to illustrate the rapid the Chain Bridge – in wrought iron, over the Potomac.
pace of change and many bridge ideas that were advanced. 1823 Gaunless Bridge, George Stephenson’s wrought iron
In the past two centuries, more bridges were built than in the ‘lenticular’ girder bridge for the Stockton and Darling-
entire history of bridge building prior to that! ton Railway.
1826 Menai Suspension Bridge, famous eyebar, wrought
iron chain suspension bridge over the Menai Straits, by
The age of iron (1775–1880) Thomas Telford.
Of all the materials used in bridge construction – stone, wood, 1834 The Fribourg Bridge, the world’s longest iron suspen-
brick, steel and concrete – iron was used for the shortest time. sion bridge.
Cast iron was first smelted from iron ore successfully by Dud 1841 Whipple patents the cast iron ‘bowstring’ truss bridge.
Dudley in 1619. It was another century before Abraham Derby 1846 Wheeling Suspension Bridge, Charles Ellet’s
devised a method to economically smelt iron in large quantities. record-breaking 1000 ft span, iron wire suspension
However, the brittle quality of cast iron made it safe to use only bridge.
in compression, in the form of an arch. Wrought iron, which 1850 Britannia Bridge, first box girder bridge concept, built
replaced cast iron many years later, was a ductile material that in wrought iron by Robert Stephenson (Figure 1.10).
could carry tension. It was produced in large quantities after 1853 Murphy designs a wrought iron Whipple truss, with pin
1783 when Henry Cort developed a puddling furnace process connections.
to drive impurities out of pig iron.
But iron bridges suffered some of the worst failures and
disasters in the history of bridge building. The vibration and
dynamic loading from a heavy steam locomotive, and from
goods wagons, create cyclic stress patterns on the bridge struc-
ture as the wheels roll over the bridge, going from zero load to
full load then back to zero. Over a period of time, these stress
patterns can lead to brittle failure and fatigue in cast iron and
wrought iron. In one year alone in the USA, as many as one
in every four iron and timber bridges had suffered a serious
flaw or had collapsed. Rigorous design codes, independent
checking and new bridge building procedures were drawn up,
but not soon enough to avert the worst disaster in iron bridge
history, the Tay Bridge disaster in 1879. It marked the end of
the iron bridge.
Significant bridges Figure 1.10 Britannia Bridge, Anglesey
1779 Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale, the first cast iron bridge,

designed as an arch structure by Pritchard for owner
and builder Abraham Darby III (Figure 1.9).
Figure 1.9 Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale Figure 1.11 Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash

1858 Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash – Brunel’s famous tubular 1884 The Garabit Viaduct, St Flour, France – Gustav Eiffel’s
iron bridge – over the Tamar (Figure 1.11). truss arch in wrought iron was the prototype for future
1876 The Ashtabula Bridge disaster in USA; more than 90 steel truss construction. Eiffel would have preferred
people died when this iron modified Howe truss col- steel but chose wrought iron because it was more relia-
lapsed, plunging a train and its passengers into the deep ble in quality and cheaper.
river gorge below. 1916 The Hell Gate Bridge, New York – the first 977 ft
1879 The Tay Bridge disaster, Dundee, Scotland; a passenger steel arch span in the world was designed by Gustav
train with 75 people plunged into the Tay estuary, as Lindenthal.
the supporting wrought iron girders collapsed in high 1931 The Bayonne Bridge, New York – the first bridge to
winds. be built with a cheaper carbon manganese steel, which
is the composition of most modern steel, rather than
nickel steel.
The arrival of steel 1932 Sydney Harbour Bridge – this famous steel arch was
built using 50 000 t of nickel steel, and a main span of
Steel is a refined iron, where carbon and other impurities are 503 m. Its design was based on the Hell Gate Bridge.
driven off. Techniques for making steel are said to have been 1978 New River Gorge Bridge, West Virginia – with a span
known in China in 200 bc and in India in 500 bc. However, of 518 m, this was the world’s longest steel arch span
the process was very slow and laborious and, after a great deal until the 2000s, when two bridges in China pushed their
of time and energy, only minute amounts were produced. It spans up to 552 m.
was very expensive, so it was only used for edging tools and 2020 The Guangxi Pingnan Third Bridge in China extended
weapons until the nineteenth century. In 1856, Henry Besse- the maximum span length for this type of bridge to
mer developed a process for bulk steel production by blowing 575 m using concrete-filled steel tubes for the main
air through molten iron to burn off the impurities. This was fol- arch sections.
lowed by the open hearth method, patented by Charles Siemens
and Pierre-Émile Martin in Birmingham, England, in 1867, In the UK, the Tyne Bridge, another steel truss arch struc-
which is the basis for modern steel manufacture today. It took ture, was built in the 1920s (see Figure 1.12).
a while for steel to supersede iron, because it was expensive
to manufacture. But when the world price of steel dropped by
75% in 1880, it suddenly became competitive with iron. It had
vastly superior qualities, in both compression and tension; it
was ductile and not brittle like iron, and was much stronger. It
could be rolled, cast or even drawn, to form rivets, wires, tubes
and girders. The age of steel opened the door to tremendous
advances in long-span bridge building technology. The first
bridges to exploit this new material were in the USA, where the
steel arch, the steel truss and the wire rope suspension bridges
were pioneered. Later, Britain led the world in the cantilever
truss bridge and the steel box girder bridge deck.
The historical progress of the principle of building bridges in
steel covering the period from 1880 to the present is described
next.
The steel truss arch Figure 1.12 Tyne Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne
When steel prices dropped in the 1870s and 1880s, the first The cantilever truss
important bridges to use steel were all in the USA. The arches
of St Louis Bridge over the Mississippi and the five Whipple Arch bridges had been constructed for many centuries in
trusses of the Glasgow Bridge over the Missouri were the first stone, then iron and later, when it became available, in steel.
to incorporate steel in truss construction. St Louis, situated on Steel made it possible to build longer-span trusses than cast
the Mississippi and near the confluence of the Missouri and iron without any increase in the dead weight. Consequently,
Mississippi, was the most important town in midwest USA, this made cantilever long-span truss construction viable over
and the focal point of north–south river traffic and east–west wide estuaries. The first and most significant cantilever truss
overland routes. bridge to be built was the rail bridge over the Firth of Forth near
Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1890. The cantilever truss was rapidly
1874 The St Louis Bridge – James Eads builds the first
adopted for the building of many US railroad bridges until the
triple-arch steel bridge.
collapse of the Quebec Bridge in 1907 (Figure 1.13).

interrupted only between 1890 and 1928, when the cantilever

truss held the record.
1883 Brooklyn Bridge – following the completion of the
Wheeling Suspension Bridge, pioneered by Charles
Ellet, John Roebling went on to design the Brooklyn
Bridge, the first steel wire suspension bridge in the
world.
1931 George Washington Bridge – the heaviest suspension
bridge to use parallel wire cables rather than rope strand
cable, and the longest span in the world for nearly a
decade (Figure 1.14).
1950 Tacoma Narrows Bridge – the second Tacoma Narrows
Bridge, rebuilt after the collapse of the first bridge with
a deep stiffening truss deck, set the trend for future
suspension bridge design in the USA.
1957 Mackinac Bridge – Big Mac is the longest overall sus-
Figure 1.13 Quebec Bridge, Canada pension bridge in the USA.
1965 Verazzano Bridge-Narrows – the last big suspension
bridge to be built in the USA, also held the record for
1886 The Fraser River Bridge, Canada – believed to be the
the longest span until 1981.
first balanced cantilever truss bridge to be built. All the
truss piers, links and lower chord members were fab-
ricated from Siemens–Martin steel. It was dismantled
in 1910.
1890 The Forth Rail Bridge, Edinburgh, Scotland – when
finished, the world’s longest spanning bridge at 1700 ft.
1891 The Cincinnati–Newport Bridge, Cincinnati – with its
long through-cantilever spans and short truss spans, this
was the prototype of many rail bridges in the USA.
1902 The Viaur Viaduct, France – this rail bridge between
Toulouse and Lyon was an elegant variation of the bal-
anced cantilever, with no suspended section between
the two cantilever arms.
1919 The Quebec Bridge – completion of the second Quebec
Bridge, the world’s longest cantilever span.
1927 Carquinez Bridge – the last of the long cantilever truss
bridges to be built in the USA, although a second iden-
tical bridge was built alongside it in 1958 to increase
traffic flow.
The suspension bridge

The early pioneers of chain suspension bridges were James
Finlay, Thomas Telford, Samuel Brown and Marc Seguin, but
they had only cast and wrought iron available in the building of
their early suspension bridges. It was not until Charles Ellet’s
Wheeling Suspension Bridge had shown the potential of wire
suspension using wrought iron that the concept was universally
adopted. Undoubtedly, the greatest exponent of early wire sus-
pension construction and strand spinning technology was John
Roebling. His Brooklyn Bridge was the first to use steel for the
wires of suspension cables.
Suspension bridges are capable of huge spans, bridging
wide river estuaries and deep valleys and have been essential
in establishing road networks across countries. They have
held the record for longest span from 1826 to the present day, Figure 1.14 George Washington Bridge, New York

1967 Severn Bridge – the first bridge to have a slim, aerody- Lower Yarra River. By far the worst collapse was on the West
namic bridge deck, eliminating the need for deep stiff- Gate Bridge, a single cable-stay structure with a continuous
ening trusses like those of US suspension bridges. It set box girder deck. A deck span section 367 ft long and weighing
the trend for future suspension bridge construction. 2000 t, buckled and crashed off the pier support on to some site
1981 Humber Bridge – the longest span in the world when huts below, where workmen and engineers were having their
completed, with supporting strands that were inclined lunch; 35 people were killed in the tragedy. After this accident,
in a zigzag fashion rather than the parallel arrangement further construction of steel box girder deck bridges was halted
preferred by the Americans. until better design standards, new site checking procedures and
1998 Great Belt East Bridge – the Great Belt crossing is the a fabrication specification were agreed internationally.
longest bridge in Europe. For a short while the main
1936 Elbe Bridge – one of the early plate girder bridges on
span of the East Bridge held the record for the longest
the German autobahn.
span in the world.
1948 Bonn–Beuel bridge – a later development of the plate
1998 Akashi Kaikyo Bridge – is one of a family of long-span
girder into a flat arch, to reduce material weight.
bridges linking the islands of Honshu and Shikoku. Its
1952 Cologne Deutz Bridge – the first slender steel box
main span of 1991 m made it the longest span in the
girder bridge in the world.
world for the next 24 years.
1974 Rio–Niterói Bridge – built in Brazil with a 300 m span
2022 Çanakkale 1915 Bridge –under construction in Turkey
to become the world’s longest span of this type.
at the time of writing, this bridge will become the
1970s Failure of box girders at Milford Haven in Wales and
longest span in the world when completed.
West Gate Bridge in Australia halted further building of
2022 Strait of Messina bridge, Italy – is planned with a main
the steel box girder bridge decks for a time.
span of 3300 m, well beyond any other suspension
bridge previously constructed. On and off over the last Since the 1980s, steel box girder bridges have again become
40 years, this project was on again at the time of writing popular for medium-span bridges in countries where the steel
and, if finally constructed, is likely to remain the long- industry remains strong.
est span for years to come.
Concrete and the arch

Steel plate girder and box girder
Although engineers took a long time to realise the true potential
Since the development of steel and of the I-beam, many beam of concrete as a building material, today it is used everywhere
bridges were built using a group of beams in parallel, which in a vast number of bridges and building applications. Concrete
were interconnected at the top to form a roadway. They were is a brittle material, like stone, good in compression, but not in
quick to assemble but were only practical over relatively short tension, so if it starts to bend or twist it will crack. Concrete has
spans for rail and road viaducts. The riveted girder I-beam was to be reinforced with steel to give it ductility, so naturally its
later superseded by the welded and friction grip bolted beam. emergence followed the development of steel. In 1824, Joseph
However, relatively long spans were not efficient, as the depth Aspdin made a crude cement from burning a mixture of clay
of the beam could become excessive. To counter this, web plate and limestone at high temperature. The clinker that was formed
stiffeners were added at close intervals to prevent buckling of was ground into a powder, and when this was mixed with water
the beams. Another solution was to make each beam into a it reacted chemically to harden back into a rock. Cement is
hollow box, which was very rigid. In this way, the beam depth combined with sand, stones and water to create concrete, which
could be reduced and material could be saved. Steel box girder remains fluid and plastic for a period of time, before it begins
beams could be quickly fabricated and were easy to transport. to set and hardens. It can be poured and placed into moulds
Their relatively shallow depth meant that high approaches were or forms while it is fluid, to create bridge beams, arch spans,
not necessary. Most of this pioneering work was carried out support piers – in fact, a variety of structural shapes. This gives
during and after the Second World War, when there was a huge concrete special qualities as a material, and scope for bold and
demand for fast and efficient bridge building for spans of up imaginative bridge ideas.
to 1000 ft. The major rebuilding programme in Germany wit- François Hennebique was the first to understand the theory
nessed the construction of many steel box girder and concrete and practical use of steel reinforcement in concrete, but it was
box girder bridges in the 1950s and 1960s. For spans greater Robert Maillart (1872–1940) who was first to pioneer and
than 1000 ft, suspension and cable-stay bridges are generally build bridges with reinforced concrete. Eugène Freyssinet,
more economical to construct. Maillart’s contemporary, was also keen to experiment with
In the 1970s, the world’s attention was focused on the col- concrete structures and went on to discover the art of prestress-
lapse of four steel box girder bridges under construction. These ing, giving the bridge industry one of the most efficient meth-
bridges were in Vienna over the Danube, in Milford Haven in ods of bridge deck construction in the world. Both these men
Wales (when four people were killed), a bridge over the Rhine were great engineers and champions of concrete bridges. What
in Germany and the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne over the they achieved set the trend for future developments in concrete

bridges – precast bridge beams, concrete arch, box girder and Concrete box girders
segmental cantilever construction. Concrete box girder bridge
decks are incorporated in many modern cable-stay and suspen- 1950s–1960s Many motorway bridges and viaducts were
sion bridges. built in Europe and the USA using concrete box girder
Jean Muller and contractors Campenon Bernard were construction. Some were precast segmental construc-
responsible for building the first matchcast, glued segmental, tion; some were cast in place.
concrete box girder bridge in the world. This technique is now 1952 Shelton Road Bridge – first matchcast, glue segmental,
used by many bridge builders across the world. The box girder box girder construction in the world, developed by Jean
span can be precast in segments or cast in place using a travel- Muller.
ling formwork system. These bridges can be built as balanced 1956 Lake Pontchartrain Bridge – the second longest bridge
cantilevers each side of a pier or launched from one span to in the world, is a precast segmental box girder bridge
the next. with 2700 spans and runs for 23 miles across Lake
Concrete has been used in building most of the world’s long- Pontchartrain near New Orleans. A second identical
est bridges. The relative cheapness of concrete compared with bridge, built alongside the original one in 1969, was
steel, with the ability to rapidly precast or form prestressed 69 m longer.
beams of standard lengths, has made concrete economically 1963 Medway Bridge – the first European river bridge to be
attractive. Lake Pontchartrain Bridge, a precast concrete seg- built using concrete box girder construction (Figure
mental box girder bridge in Louisiana, is the longest bridge in 1.16); at 150 m, it had the longest span of this type in
the USA, with an overall length of 23 miles. the world at the time.
1976 Hamana Bridge, Japan – built using the balanced canti-
lever technique, a span of 240 m was achieved.
The concrete arch
2006 Shibanpo Yangtze River Bridge, China – at 330 m,
1898 Glenfinnan Viaduct – the first concrete arch bridge to be currently the world’s longest concrete box girder span
built in England. without cable stays.
1905 Tavanasa Bridge – a breakthrough in the stiffened arch
slab.
1922 St Pierre de Vouvray – early concrete bowstring arch of
Freyssinet.
1929 Plougastel Bridge – unique construction concept, which
used prestressing for the first time.
1930 Salginatobel Bridge – one of the most aesthetic arch
spans of Maillart (Figure 1.15).
1936 Alsea Bay Bridge – one of Conde McCullough’s fine
‘art deco’ bridges in Oregon (since demolished).
1964 Gladesville Bridge – use of precast prestressed segmen-
tal construction for the arch span.
1964 Krk Bridge, Croatia – at 204 m, it was the longest con- Figure 1.16 Medway Bridge, Kent
crete arch span in the world at the time.

1995 Jiangjiehe Bridge, China – became the longest span in Cable-stay bridges
the world when completed, with a main span of 300 m
2016 Qinglong Railway Bridge, China – with a span of 445 m Cable stays are an adaptation of the early rope bridges, and of
it is currently the longest span of this type in the world guy ropes for securing tent structures and the masts of sailing
and, at 295 m above the river it crosses, it is also one of ships. When very rigid, trapezoidal box girder bridge decks
the world’s highest. were developed for suspension bridges, this allowed a single
plane of stays to support the bridge deck directly. This meant
that fewer cables were needed than for a conventional suspen-
sion system, there was no need for anchorages and therefore
construction was cheaper. Cost and time have always been
the principal motivators for change and innovation in bridge
engineering.
The first modern cable-stay bridges were pioneered by
German engineers just after the Second World War, led by
Fritz Leonhardt, René Walter and Jörg Schlaich. The cable-
stay bridge is probably the most visually pleasing of all modern
Figure 1.15 Salginatobel Bridge – one of the most aesthetic arch spans of long-span bridge forms. In recent times, the development of
Maillart (courtesy of EH) the cable-stay and box girder bridge deck has continued with

the work of Danish engineers COWI, bridge engineers Carlos 2016 Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Istanbul – a hybrid mix-
Fernández Casado of Spain, R Greisch of Belgium, Jean Muller ture of cable-stayed and suspension, the main span
International, Sogelerg and Michel Virlogeux of France. of 1410 m is currently the longest span of this type. It
is also one of the widest, at 58.4 m, and tallest, with
Cable-stay history towers at 322 m high.
1955 Strömstrund Bridge, Norway – the first cable-stay
bridge. Aesthetic design in bridges
1956 North Bridge, Düsseldorf – using an early harp arrange-
ment for a family of cable-stay bridges over the Rhine, Introduction
it was the prototype for many cable-stay bridges.
1959 Severin Bridge – the first to adopt an A-frame tower and Is it possible that there is a universal law or truth about beauty
the first bridge to use a fan configuration for the stays; a on which we can all agree? We can probably argue that, no
very efficient bridge form. matter what our aesthetic taste in art, literature or music, cer-
1962 Lake Maracaibo Bridge – an unusual composite cable- tain works have been universally acclaimed as masterpieces
stay and concrete frame support structure for a bridge because they please the senses, evoking admiration and a feel-
built in Venezuela, using local labour. ing of well-being. Music, literature and painting can appeal to
1962 Nord Elbe Bridge, Hamburg – the first bridge to use a an audience directly, unlike a building or bridge, whose beauty
single plane of cables; the deck was a stiffened rectan- has to be ‘read’ through its structural form, which has been
gular box girder. designed to serve another more fundamental purpose. Judging
1966 Wye River Bridge, England – a single cable-stay from what is great from many competent examples must come from
the mast supports the continuous steel box girder bridge an individual’s own experience and understanding of past and
deck; the Erskine Bridge, built in 1971, was a better contemporary styles of expression. The desire to please or to
example of this construction. shock is not fundamental in the design of bridges, whose pri-
1974 Brotonne Bridge – the first cable-stay bridge to use a mary purpose is to provide a safe passage over an obstacle, be
precast concrete box girder deck and a single plane of it a river or gorge or another roadway. A bridge, taken in its
cable stays (Figure 1.17). purest sense, is no more than an extension of a pathway, a road-
1984 Coatzacoalcos II Bridge, Mexico – elegant pier and way or a canal. We do not regard roads, paths and canals as ‘art
mast tower, combining the rigidity of the A-frame with forms’ that evoke aesthetic pleasure, as we do with buildings.
the economy of a single foundation. Hence, it is reasonable to ask why a bridge should be an art
1995 Pont de Normandie – a breakthrough in the design of form. In the very early years of civilisation, bridges were built
very long cable-stay spans. to breach a chasm or stream to satisfy just that purpose. They
2008 Sutong Yangtze River Bridge, China – pushes cable- had no aesthetic function. Later on, when great civilisations
stayed clear span beyond 1000 m. placed a temporal value on the quality of their buildings and
2012 Russky Bridge, Vladivostok – currently the world heightened their religious and cultural beliefs through their
longest pure cable-stayed span, at 1104 m, with a steel architecture, these values transferred to bridges. And like all the
deck. important buildings of a period, when stone and timber were
the principal sources of construction material, work was done
by skilled craftsmen. Masons would cut, chisel and hew stones;
carpenters would saw, plane and connect pieces of timber
falsework or centring to support the masonry structure. It took
many years to ‘fashion’ a bridge. Each stone was carefully cut
to fit precisely into position. Hundreds of stonemasons would
be employed to work on the important bridges. Voussoirs and
key stones were sculptured and tooled in the architectural style
of the period. Architecture was regarded as an integral part of
bridge construction, and this tradition continued into the age
of iron, where highly decorative wrought iron and cast iron
sections were expressed on the external faces of the bridge.
Well into the middle of the twentieth century, arch bridges in
concrete and steel were cloaked in masonry panels to imitate
the Renaissance, Classical and Baroque periods.
Gradually, however, as the pace of industrial change inten-
sified, by the expansion of the railways, and by the building
of road networks, a radical step change in the design and con-
struction of bridges occurred. Bridges had to be functional,
Figure 1.17 Brotonne Bridge, Sotteville, France they had to be quick to build, low in cost and structurally

efficient. They had to span farther and use fewer materials in This was in step with the massive industrial and commercial
construction. Less excavation for deep piers and foundations expansion throughout the country, and emergence of the high-
under water meant faster construction, whereas short con- rise building – the skyscraper. And in building bridges – the
tinuous trestle supports across a wide valley were simple to great suspension, steel arch and cantilever truss bridges – those
construct and required shallow foundations. Under these pres- that were important were the subject of much debate about
sures, standardisation and prefabrication of bridges displaced appearance, and harmony with their surrounding environ-
aesthetic consideration in bridge design. Of course, there were ment. Champions of aesthetic bridge design emerged – David
exceptions when prestigious bridges were commissioned in Steinman, Conde McCullough, Gustav Lindenthal and Othmar
major commercial centres to retain the quality and character Ammann. All of these were engineers. Steinman was the most
of the built environment. And sometimes even these considera- flamboyant and outspoken individual among this group and
tions were sidelined in the name of progress and regeneration, wrote books and articles on the subject. Conde McCullough’s
as was the case in the aftermath of the two world wars. When ‘art deco’ bridges – inspired by the bridges of Robert Maillart
economic stability returns to a nation after the ravages of war, – were aesthetic masterpieces of the concrete arch and steel
and living standards start to rise, so does interest in the arts and cantilever truss bridge.
the quality of the built environment. In the 1950s and 1960s, the bridge building boom moved
After the Second World War, for example, rebuilding activ- to Europe following the war years, with a plethora of utili-
ity had to be fast and efficient, with great emphasis placed on tarian structures built in the name of economy. Architectural
prefabrication, system-built housing and the tower block to and aesthetic considerations were reduced to a minor role.
rehouse as many people as possible. In Germany, rebuilding Bland, insensitive and crude bridge structures and viaducts
the many bridges that were demolished led to the development appeared across the open countryside, and through towns and
of the plate girder and box girder structures. Box girder bridge across cities. Concern about the impact these bridges would
structures, with standardised sections, proliferated the road have on the built environment brought Fritz Leonhardt, one of
networks and motorways of Europe, were built over viaducts, Germany’s leading bridge engineers, to Berlin in the 1950s.
interchanges, flyovers and river crossings. In this period, the He was part of a small team whom the government highways
shape and form of the bridge was dictated by the contractor’s department made responsible for incorporating aesthetics into
preference for repetition and simplicity of construction. bridge design. He worked with a number of leading German
Given this history, it is hardly surprising to find that many architects, particularly Paul Bonatz, and through this associa-
of our towns, urban areas and motorway networks are blighted tion and from extensive field studies of bridges, he evolved a
by ugly, functional bridging structures, whose presence now set of criteria on the design of good-looking bridges. He set this
causes a public outcry. out in his book on bridge aesthetics Brücken (Bridges) (Bonatz
and Leonhardt, 1956). Figure 1.18 shows an example of one of
his bridges.
Bridge aesthetics in the
twentieth century
Over the centuries, as the various forms of bridges evolved in
the major towns and cities, the architectural style of the period
was superimposed on them, to create order and homogeneity.
Classical, Romanesque, Byzantine, Islamic, Renaissance,
Gothic, Baroque, Georgian and Victorian architectural styles
adorn many historic bridges today, such as the Renaissance
Rialto Bridge in Venice, the Romanesque Ponte Sant’Angelo
in Rome and the French Gothic of the Pont de la Concorde in
Paris. They are recognisable symbols of their eras, of imperi
alist ambition and nationhood, where the dominant form of
construction was the arch. But with the arrival of steel and con-
crete in the early part of the twentieth century, new structural
forms emerged in building and bridge design that radically
changed both the architecture and visual expression of bridges. Figure 1.18 An example of Fritz Leonhardt’s work – Maintalbrücke
The segmental arch was replaced by the flat arch, the flat plate Gemünden
girder and box girder beam; the cantilever truss was replaced
by the cable-stay and the suspension bridge. The decorative Although bridge design was dominated by civil engineers in
stone-clad bridges of the past were slowly replaced by the the twentieth century, somehow the aesthetic vision of the early
minimalism of highly engineered structures. pioneers, such as Roebling, Eiffel and Maillart, and later that
Undoubtedly, during the period from the 1920s to the 1940s of Steinman and McCullough and their contemporaries, was
the greatest concentration of bridge building was in the USA. never seriously addressed in contemporary bridge design in the

UK during the middle and later years of the twentieth century.

It appears that the education and training of British civil engi-
neers did not include an understanding of the architecture of
the built environment.
Was this also true in other parts of Europe after the war?
It is possible that in France, with the emergence of bridges
such as those at Plougastel (Figure 1.19), Orly Airport Viaduct,
Tancarville and Brotonne, and, more recently, examples such
as the Pont de l’Isère (Figure 1.20), the second Garabit Viaduct
and Pont de Normandie, a conscious effort was made to build
beautiful bridges. In conversation with Jean Muller and Michel
Virlogeux, comparing their educational background and train-
ing with that of the great Eugène Freyssinet, it would seem that Figure 1.20 Pont de l’Isère, France
they all had some education and teaching on bridge aesthetics

at university. This might explain why their bridges look civil engineers and so on. The entrants had to submit an artistic
elegant and thoroughly well engineered. It also appears that impression of the bridge and accompany it with notes explain-
senior personnel in government bridge departments in France, ing its construction and how it would be built and describing
who appoint consultants and commission the building of the its special qualities for the location. The bridge was to be a new
major bridges, have the same commitment to build visually pedestrian crossing over the upper reaches of the Thames in
pleasing bridge structures. Many of them have been schooled a very unspoilt setting in Lechlade. Each entrant was given a
in bridge engineering at the University of Paris. Awareness of reference number, so that the judges had no knowledge of the
bridge aesthetics at engineering school is a critical factor. And name of the entrant. The winning design, out of 300 entries,
having developed a design that fully reconciles aesthetics, it was created by an architect. The president of the RFAC,
is then sent out for tendering. Contractors in France are not speaking on behalf of the judging panel, described the win-
given the opportunity to propose cheaper alternative designs, ning design as a ‘beautiful solution of great simplicity and ele-
only the opportunity to propose construction innovations in gance entirely appropriate to its rural setting’ – but it was not
building the chosen design economically. Not surprisingly, built. The residents of Lechlade labelled the design a ‘yuppie
aesthetically designed bridges are competitive on price, as the tennis racket from hell’ and planning permission was with-
major constructors in France have, over the years, invested in held. Nevertheless, the imaginative design ideas that resulted
new technology and sophisticated erection techniques to build from this competition prompted many local authorities and
efficiently. development corporations, particularly the London Docklands
Development Corporation (LDDC), to follow suit. Coincident
with the competition was a second watershed event – a design
study for the proposed East London River Crossing by Santi-
ago Calatrava that took the bridge world by storm. Calatrava’s
dramatic, rapier-slim bridge concept arching over the Thames
showed how a well-engineered bridge design can produce a
pleasing aesthetic – it seemed that everyone wanted Calatrava
to design a bridge for them.
During the past three decades in the UK, architectural style
has been a confusing cocktail of past and present influences,
high-tech and neoclassical, romantic modernism and minimal-
ism, which has in some ways marginalised the influence and
appreciation of architecture. As a result, highway authorities
that commission bridges have paid more attention to structural
efficiency, cost control and long-term durability. Aesthetic con-
Figure 1.19 Plougastel, France (courtesy of JMI) sideration, if addressed at all, was treated as an appendage, and
the first item to be dropped if the tender price was high. The
In England in the 1990s, two unconnected, yet controver- reason for this was simple: both the client and design consult-
sial, events marked a watershed in bridge aesthetics and gave ant were civil engineers with little empathy towards modern
recognition to the role of architects in bridge design. The first architecture and the aesthetic judgement of architects on bridge
of these events was the Bloomers Hole Footbridge competition design. Unfortunately, earlier this decade a recent exhibition on
run by the Royal Fine Arts Commission (RFAC) on behalf of ‘living bridges’ at the Royal Academy has confirmed this point
the District Council of Thamesdown. The competition, which of view. The architecture-inspired ideas tended to make bridges
was run by the rules of the Royal Institute of British Architects look and function like buildings… and failed. But despite this
(RIBA), was open to anyone – bridge engineers, architects, setback the ‘old school’ attitudes of civil and bridge engineers

are slowly being replaced by a new generation of engineers

and clients who have recognised the value of working with
architects.
The search for aesthetic understanding

Why have architecture and bridge engineering not found a
common language over the centuries, as has happened in
building structures? There have been periods of bridge building
when both ideals were combined in bridges. Engineers such as
Lindenthal, Ammann, Steinman and McCullough in the USA
were advocates of visually pleasing bridges. In Europe, indi-
viduals such as Freyssinet, Maillart, Leonhardt, Menn, Muller
and Caltrava and consultant groups such as Arup, COWI and
Casado were recognised for their aesthetic design of bridges.
All of them will own up to the fact that they employed or worked
alongside architects. Ammann worked closely with Cass Gil-
bert, the architect of the gothic Woolworth Tower, arguably the Figure 1.21 Henry Hudson Memorial Bridge, New York (courtesy of
most beautiful skyscraper ever built. Steinman built many great Steinman Consulting)
bridges, and tried hard to add flair and style to his designs, but
he had to teach himself aesthetics at university. ‘In my student
days when we were taught bridge design, I never heard the word
“beauty” mentioned once. We concentrated on stress analysis,
design formulae and graphic methods, strength of materials,
locomotive loading and influence lines, pin connections, gusset
plates and lattice bars, estimating, fabrication and erection and
so on… But not a word was said about artistic design, about the
aesthetic considerations in the design of engineering structures.
And there was no whisper of thought that bridges could be
beautiful.’ writes Steinman (1945) in an article on the beauty of
bridges that appeared in the Hudson Engineering Journal. So
how did Steinman learn to develop his skill in aesthetic design?
‘For my graduation thesis in 1908 at Columbia University I
chose to design the Henry Hudson Memorial Bridge [Figure
1.21] as a steel arch. I worked on the idea for a year and a half
before my graduation. I was determined to make this design
a model of technical and analytical excellence. But this was
not all… I was further determined to make my design a model
of artistic excellence.’ Steinman read everything he could on Figure 1.22 St John’s Bridge, Portland, Oregon
the subject of beauty, and aesthetics in design. He discussed

the subject with friends who were studying architecture, but In the eighteenth century, Perronet took exception to any
they could not help him much. ‘They were trained in masonry design that was not pleasing to the eye. In discussing the Nogent
architecture, in classic orders, ornamentation and mouldings… Bridge on the upper Seine, he remarked, ‘Some engineers,
steel was an unfamiliar material.’ Instead, he visited existing finding that the arches… do not rise enough near the springing,
bridges, to observe and reason why some were ugly and others have given a large number of degrees and a larger radius to this
were thrilling to look at. He spent a lot of time climbing and part of the curve… but such curves have a fault disagreeable to
walking over the Washington Arch Bridge, to study its design the eye.’ The proportions, the visual line and aesthetic of the
from every artistic angle because it inspired him. ‘In my thesis arch, were important factors in Perronet’s mind. He was trained
I included a thorough discussion and analysis of the artistic as an architect. The Pont Neuilly, built over the Seine in Paris
merits of my design. When I finished the thesis and turned in 1776, was one of the most admired bridges in architecture.
it over to Professor William Burr… he gave me the unusual James Finch, author of Engineering and Western Civilization
mark of 100 per cent.’ Figure 1.22 shows another of Steinman’s (1951), called Nueilly ‘the most graceful and beautiful stone
bridges – St John’s Bridge in Portland, Oregon – which was bridge ever built’. Sadly, it was demolished in 1956 to make
opened by Steinman in 1931. way for a new steel arch bridge. It would have been useful to

have studied Nueilly today, but one has to recognise that the researching many books written on aesthetics and beauty over
stone arch is an obsolete technology and has been replaced by the centuries. The reason for this is that the brain can appar-
the cable-stay, steel arch and concrete box girder bridge. ently recognise ratios and objects up to a maximum of seven
In the 1960s, Leonhardt suggested the use of the Greek without counting. He suggests that the ratio of, say, the span to
‘golden section’ to solve the problem of ‘good order’ and har- the height of a bridge, or the span to overall length for example,
mony of proportions. He blames a lack of education for the should not exceed seven – for example 1:7; 2:3; 1:2:4 and so
poor understanding of the importance of aesthetics. Too much on. When the proportions are less than seven they are instantly
emphasis placed on material economy, which is why there are recognised and appear right and beautiful. The use of shadow
so many ugly structures. ‘The whole of society, especially the line, edge cantilevers and modelling of the surface of the
public authority, the owner builders, the cost consultants and bridge can improve the aesthetic proportion by reducing the
clients are just as much to blame as the engineers and archi- visual line of the depth or width of a section, since the eye will
tects,’ argues Leonhardt. In his search for an explanation on measure the strongest visual line of the section, not the actual
good aesthetics, he referred to the work of Vitruvius and Pal- structural edge.
ladio and believed that in architecture the idea of good propor- Fred Gottemoeller – a bridge engineer and architect – con-
tion, order and harmony is very appropriate in bridge design. curs with the view that aesthetics in bridge design has largely
Many engineers have regarded his book Brücken (Bonatz and been ignored in the USA today by the bridge profession and
Leonhardt P, 1956) as the definitive guide to bridge aesthetics, client body. In his book Bridgescape, Gottemoeller (1998)
but the majority may not have fully appreciated the moral, phil- sums up the dilemma facing many bridge engineers on the
osophical and esoteric arguments that he explored. The section question of aesthetics: ‘Aesthetics is a mysterious subject to
on the origins of the golden mean and golden section will gen- most engineers, not lending itself to the engineer’s usual tools
erally appeal to the more numerate engineers, who are used to of analysis, and rarely taught in engineering schools. Being
working with mathematical formulae to find solutions. both an architect and engineer, I know that it is possible to
The Greek philosophers tried to define aesthetic beauty demystify the subject in the mind of the engineer. The work
through geometric proportion after years of study and observa- of Maillart, Muller, Menn and others prove that engineers can
tion. The suggestion was that a line should be divided so that understand aesthetics. Unfortunately such examples are too
the longer part is to the short part as the longer part is to the rare. The principle of bridge aesthetics should be made acces-
whole. The resulting section was known as the golden section sible to all engineers.’ Gottemoeller has written a clearsighted,
and was roughly divided into irrational ratios of 5:8, 8:13, practical book on good bridge design, in a style and language
13:21 and so on. The ratios must never be exact multiples. that should appeal to any literate bridge engineer. It is not a
This is a dangerous precedent to set, as the golden section book full of pretty reference pictures – the ideas have to work
can be applied to a bridge just as deflection or stress calcula- on the intellect through personal research.
tions are done. What Leonhardt concluded in his book, after It may take time before the new generation of bridge engi-
considering how aesthetics in design were assimilated in both neers with greater awareness and sensitivity of bridge aesthet-
buildings and bridges, was that aesthetics could only be learnt ics will soften attitudes towards working with architects out of
by practice and by the study of attractive bridges. He warned choice. It is doubtful that the basic training and education of
that designers must not assume that the simple application of civil engineers will change very much in the coming decade.
rules on good design will in itself lead to beautiful bridges. Many academics will feel that there is no need for aesthetics
He recommends that models be made of the bridge to visual- to be included in a degree course and that it should be some-
ise the whole design, in order to appraise its aesthetic values. thing an individual should learn in practice. Like it or not, those
Ethics and morality play a part in good design, according to that are attracted to bridge design and civil engineering do so
Leonhardt. Perhaps the words that he was searching for were because they have good analytical and numerate skills. It is
integrity and purity of form. There has been a tendency to pointless putting a paintbrush in the hands of those who hate
design gigantic and egotistic statements for bridge structures painting and then expect them to awaken to aesthetic apprecia-
out of the vanity and ambition of the client. The recent com- tion. In general, the undergraduate engineer has taken the civil
petition for Poole Harbour Bridge was a case in point. It may engineering option because calculus is preferred to essay writ-
never be built because of its high cost and because of its lack ing, technical drawing to abstract art, and scientific experiment
of integration into the local community it must also serve. One to an appraisal of a Thomas Hardy novel. Encouragement in
solution that was modest in ambition, but high on community the visual arts and aesthetics will come with practice, and from
value, with small shops, houses and light industrial buildings working alongside architects who are more able to sketch ideas
built along the length of a new causeway, was entirely appro- on paper, model the outline of bridge shapes and look for the
priate, but alas it was not designed as a ‘gateway’ structure and visible clues to see if a scheme fits well with the surrounding
did not win. landscape. Architects can help with aesthetic proportion – of
Jon Wallsgrove, formerly of the Highways Agency in the structural depth-to-span length, pier shape and spacing, the
UK, suggests that the proportions of a bridge – the relation- detailing of the abutment structure, the colour and texture of
ship of the parts to each other and to the whole – could be the finished surface of a bridge, and the preparation of scale
distilled to the number seven. He made this observation after models. After all, they have been trained to do this.

The growing trend today is to appoint a team of designers is to ensure that the design conforms to a set of rules on how
from partnerships between engineers and architects to ensure it should perform and how little it will cost. It encourages the
that aesthetics in design is fully considered. This is a healthy mediocre, the mundane and unimaginative design to be passed
sign. The LDDC successfully forged partnerships between as ‘fit for purpose’. What can be done to improve things? The
architects and engineers in the design of a series of innova- way forward has already been shown by the footbridges com-
tive and creative footbridges sited in London’s Docklands. missioned by the LDDC in the UK, by the bridges built by
Architects such as the Percy Thomas Partnership, Sir Norman Caltrans along the west coast of the USA in the 1960s, by the
Foster & Partners, Lifschutz Davidson and Chris Wilkinson, in bridges built by the Oregon Highways Department in the 1930s
particular, have made the transfer from building architecture to and 1940s and the bridges commissioned by SETRA in France
bridge architecture effortlessly. In France, the architect Alain in the 1980s, for example along the A75 Clermont–Ferrand
Spielmann has specialised in bridge architecture for nearly 30 highway (Figure 1.23). So it can be done.
years, and has worked with many of France’s leading bridge
consultants and been involved in the design of over 40 bridge
schemes. He is following a tradition in France, where architects
such as Arsac and Lavigne have worked closely with bridge
engineers. Without doubt the most significant bridge project
of the 2000s, the Millau Viaduct in central France, which was
won in competition by architect Sir Norman Foster & Partners
and a team of leading French bridge designers, has redefined
the role of the architect and bridge engineer for the future.
Each period in history will no doubt uncover monsters and
marvels of bridge engineering, as they have done with build-
ings. Succeeding generations can learn to distinguish between
good and bad design. What is an example of bad design? We
may look on Tower Bridge today as a wonderful, monumental
structure, the gateway into the Pool of London, but as a bridge it
is ostentatious, with grossly exaggerated towers for such a short
span. Some might regard it as a building with a drawbridge, but
as a building it serves no real function other than to glorify the
might of the British Empire. It would have made more sense to Figure 1.23 The A75 Clermont–Ferrand highway bridge
have built two great towers rising out of the water some way (the Millau Viaduct)
upstream of an elegant bridge, located where the bridge is now
sited. And if individuals care about the quality of architecture
of the built environment, they should voice their opinion and
express their views on good and bad design. Silent disapproval
is no better than bored indifference. It is worth reflecting that
when Tower Bridge was being designed, the Garabit Viaduct
and the Brooklyn Bridge had been built. Both bridges and their
famous designers were to inspire the engineering world for
many decades, but alas not the Victorians.
Civic pride has, over the centuries, compelled governments
and local highway authorities to attempt to build pleasing
bridges in our cities and important towns, in order to maintain
the quality of the built environment. We all agree that the linking
of places via bridges symbolises cooperation, communication
and continuity and that the bridge is one of the most important
structures to be built. It is the modest span bridges over motor-
ways, across canals and waterways in built-up urban areas that Figure 1.24 Bedford – The Butterfly Bridge (courtesy of Wilkinson Eyre)
are most devoid of any sensitivity with their surroundings –

the built environment and the urban fabric of our community. Vitruvius identified three basic components of good archi-
These featureless structures are in such profusion – plate girder tecture: firmness, commodity and delight. Many subsequent
bridge decks carrying trains over a busy high street and dirt- theorists have proposed different systems or arguments by
stained urban motorway overbridges – that they are the only which the quality of architecture can be analysed and their
bridges most of us see as we journey through a town or a city. meaning understood. The tenets Vitruvius identified provide a
The cause of this blight stems largely from legislative doctrine simple and valid basis for judging the quality of buildings and
on bridge design imposed by highway authorities, whose remit bridge structures today. ‘Firmness’ is the most basic quality

a bridge must possess and relates to the structural integrity the history of bridge building has not been lost on those who
of the design, the choice of material and the durability of the lobby for better-looking bridges. Before that, it was the domain
construction. ‘Commodity’ refers to the function of the bridge, of the architect and master builder. It is reassuring to know
and how it serves the purpose for which it was designed. This that at the beginning of the twenty-first century we seem to be
quality is rarely lacking in any bridge design, whether it is learning from the lessons of the past.
ugly or good to look at. ‘Delight’ is the term for the effect of
the bridge on the aesthetic sensibilities for those who come in Bibliography
contact with it. It may arise from the chosen shape and form
Bonatz P and Leonhardt P (1956) Brücken. Karl Robert Langewiesche,
of the bridge (see Figure 1.24), the proportion of the span to
Königstein im Taunus, Germany.
the pier supports, the rhythm of the span spacing and how well
Finch JK (1951) Engineering and Western Civilization. McGraw-
the whole structure fits in with the surrounding environment. Hill, New York, NY, USA.
It is the component that is most lacking in bridges built in the Galileo Galilei (1638) Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno
middle half of the twentieth century. a due nuove scienze (Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations
The argument that good design costs more is facile: good Relating to Two New Sciences). Elsevirii, Leiden, the Netherlands.
design requires a good design team. Look at the bridges of Gottemoeller F (1998) Bridgescape: The Art of Designing Bridges.
Roebling, Steinman, Maillart and Freyssinet –they were won in Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, USA.
competition because they were economic to build and because Palladio (1520) Four Books of Architecture. Dominico de’ Franches
the designer had considerable knowledge about construction chi, Venice, Italy.
and a gift for visual delight. They also worked closely with Ruskin J (1853) The Stones of Venice, vol. 3. Smith, Elder & Co,
talented architects. London, UK.
The fact that bridges have been designed by bridge engineers Steinman DB (1945) Beauty in bridges. Hudson Engineering Journal,
and civil engineers for only 300 out of the past 4000 years in 23 Aug.

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ice | manuals

Chapter 1 doi: 10: 10.1680/icembe.63051.0001

The history and aesthetic CONTENTS

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Figure 1.5 Pont Royale, Paris (courtesy of J Crossley)

The Renaissance brought improvements in both the art and

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techno­logy and bridge building. Many new and daring ideas

Figure 1.7 Example of the Bollman truss

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Significant bridges Figure 1.10 Britannia Bridge, Anglesey

1779 Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale, the first cast iron bridge,

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interrupted only between 1890 and 1928, when the cantilever

The suspension bridge

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Concrete and the arch

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crete arch span in the world at the time.

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UK during the middle and later years of the twentieth century.

they all had some education and teaching on bridge ­aesthetics

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are slowly being replaced by a new generation of engineers

The search for aesthetic understanding

the subject of beauty, and aesthetics in design. He discussed

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are most devoid of any sensitivity with their surroundings –

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technology and bridge building. Many new and daring ideas

they all had some education and teaching on bridge aesthetics