39 spectacular bridges around the world

[LONDONER]

If you know of others then please post

http://hiconsumption.com/2014/06/the-39-...the-world/

[Insertnamehere]

Chapel, Rialto and Rolling bridges are my faves.

I'm not sure what's so amazing about the more "standard" bridges, like the Golden Gate, the NY ones, China, etc. Aesthetics? Length? Tricky Engineering? A particular feat on the city history?

Since I know [MENTION=21558]Emiliano[/MENTION] will be a complete and utter whore about this thread maybe he can answer those questions

[BlueStar]

Chaban Delmas bridge, close to my house:

[Emiliano]

Chapel, Rialto and Rolling bridges are my faves.

I'm not sure what's so amazing about the more "standard" bridges, like the Golden Gate, the NY ones, China, etc. Aesthetics? Length? Tricky Engineering? A particular feat on the city history?

Since I know [MENTION=21558]Emiliano[/MENTION] will be a complete and utter whore about this thread maybe he can answer those questions

If I remember right the Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to made with steel cables, which the designer - Roebling- I think invented himself. He also died from the bends, or caissons disease, which again if I remember right, was first discovered with the building of that bridge. Of course culturally it is also important because it was the first structure to connect Manhattan to Brooklyn and sort of ushered in the consolidation of the 5 boroughs as one city - before 1898 NYC was strictly Manhattan. It's also beautiful, it kind of pains me to see it referred to as a standard bridge.

The GW bridge is one of the busiest bridges in the world, if not the busiest. It's the only bridge that links Manhattan to Jersey, so it's of value in that sense. At the time of construction I'm pretty sure it was longest suspension bridge in the world- a title the Brooklyn bridge also held when it was constructed too. Another good fact is that it was intended to be covered in stone but that never happened which is what led to its current appearance. And there's a great children's book about the little red lighthouse at the foot of the bridge that was kept despite being made obsolete by the lights of the GW. The heaviest load ever carried over it was a tunnel boring machine too.



My personal favorite bridge is the Verrazano that connects Brooklyn to Staten Island. It's huge and beautiful and graceful, again it held the title of longest suspension bridge in the world when it was built and the fact I always connect to it is that the designer had to account for the curvature of the earth when building it. One of my favorite books is The Bridge by Gay Talese which is about the workers who built the bridge and the effects it had on the communities on both sides of the bridge. The Brooklyn side, in the neighborhood of Bay Ridge, it was strongly opposed because then city planner and one of the most powerful men in NYC history, Robert Moses used imminent domain to clear land for the construction. Staten islanders were more for it though. But growing up in Coney Island, I saw that bridge from my apartment window and fell in love with it.

But to answer your question, they are famous and wonderful because they are integral transit links and beautiful landmarks in the greatest city in the whole world. In my humble opinion.

[Insertnamehere]

Thank you Emil. You didn't fail to deliver

[CellarDweller]

omg, some of those bridges..............crazy!

[LONDONER]

My personal favourite is the Millau Viaduct, France. It is long, tall, slim and elegant and a fabulous work of engineering.

[Insertnamehere]

Where are the bridges from Africa ?

http://www.africaranking.com/top-10-long...es-africa/

[Insertnamehere]

Yes I am aware that bridges existed in Africa but they are not very spectacular are they..

I googled the first bridge, it was designed by German engineering and constructed by Hochitef of Germany.

Yes, a fairly prevalent scenario in the "third world": the colonial powers usually built just enough road infrastructure to connect the resource's extraction sites with ports with which to comfortably transport the good from the exploited colonies towards Europe so as to make the later wealthier at the expense of makign the first poorer. Fun times.

Now, I'm gonna ask you here as politely as I can. STOP with the black people/Africa bashing you've endulged yourself with, ok? It's getting irritating.

Do realize that the ENTIRE human race evolved and originated IN AFRICA, before you keep on throwing your illogical hatred towards it any further. Deal?

[LONDONER]

There were/are some very obvious omissions from the list. As an example, this one:

The oldest single arch stone bridge in Mostar, the Kriva Cuprija ("Sloping Bridge"), was built in 1558 by the Ottoman architect Cejvan Kethoda. It is said that this was to be a test before the major construction of the Stari Most began. The Old Bridge was completed in 1566 and was hailed as one of the greatest architectural achievement in the Ottoman controlled Balkans. This single-arch stone bridge is an exact copy of the original bridge that stood for over 400 years and that was designed by Hajrudin, a student of the great Ottoman architect Sinan. It spans 28.7 meters of the Neretva river, 21 meters above the summer water level. The Halebija and Tara towers have always housed the guardians of the bridge and during Ottoman times were also used as storehouses for ammunition. The arch is a perfect semicircle 8.56 m in width and 4.15 m in height. The frontage and vault are made of regular stone cubes incorporated into the horizontal layers all along the vault. The space between vault, frontal walls and footpath is filled with cracked stone. The bridge footpath and the approaching roads are paved with cobblestones, as is the case with the main roads in the town. Stone steps enable people to ascend to the bridge either side. During the armed conflict between Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats in the Bosnian War in the 1990s, the bridge was destroyed by the Croatian Defence Council.

Quoted from Wikipedia.

Since the bridge was a UNESCO World Heritage site, it has since been rebuilt using as much of the original material as possible.