When I started to work on my project proposal it was wide-oriented as the UNFINISHED SPACES project. Now it focused on the idea of a LIVING BRIDGE.
I decided to develop my project this way because I found out it has even more potential then I expected before. The idea of a living bridge for many of today people seems unreal or at least hard to imagine in a world where almost all previous living bridges had vanished by reasons of time and the need for network transportation bridges.
I would like my project to be a continuation of a discussion started by the Thames Water Habitable Bridge Competition organised by the Royal College of Art in 1996 and continued by publishing „Living Bridges – the inhabited bridge, past, present and future” the following year. This book is for me a great source of information and convinced me to continue developing theproject.
By creating my works which I call photocompositions I would like to open people’s imagination and their perception of the future.
My project is developing in various ways:
recreation of existing bridges,
new bridges created from existing objects (from photographs + photoshop) and new bridges created from sketches and created in 3 D programmes.
When the Old London Bridge was created in the XII century it served till the end of the XVIII century mainly as a market place while it had other accompanying functions: home, office and spiritual space (chapel).
A new living bridge could serve with a wider spectrum of functions thanks to technology development and address the need for new land whithin city area which could be found upon the river.
Creating new gardens in modern cities is almost impossible and/or very expensive while you have to destroy existing buildings. In the center of London it is impossible. But we could create an unending garden bridge which would span from one part to the other of the river, people could enjoy it while walking on green pathways surrounded by trees, sculptures and the Thames river.
Another bridge could be destiny, the open space, superstructure sculpture. It could be a place for meditation, very spiritual. The idea for this bridge came to me from a book entitled „Casa de retiro espiritual”. Emilio Ambasz created a spiritual house in the Spanish countryside with a view to the sea. A river has similar spiritual potential as the sea, it can help people to slow down even for a moment looking at flowing endless water (I hope…)
When recreating existing bridges I would like to start with a project which could be done soon using relatively limited funds.
Creating sitting places on the Royal Victoria Bridge or a cafe/restaurant platform on Waterloo Bridge are projects which could start changing perception of the bridge from a transportation solution to other functions.
Areas like London docklands have lost their identity. Most of old warehouses were destroyed and series of similar-looking buildings were created by developers. Those places are seeking for strong landmark and a living bridge is undoubtedly be an interesting solution.
I was walking through almost all of the dockland area starting from Wapping, then the Isle of Dogs, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and ending with Royal Docks. What makes those places so empty, why it is so rare to see people spending time there? It is very hard to find an interesting place within that areas, one can hardly see any bars, galleries.
A living bridge would start a change in the opinion and the perception of the whole area. In a now boring and culture-dead place it would spread a regeneration of the area not only by pumping billions of pounds (like in the case of London Olympic 2012 project for Stratford) but at the first place by bringing in art, galleries, gardens, people….
While searching for inspirations for living bridges I decided to study the history of constructing bridges: “The Bridges. Three thousand years of defying nature”.
This book allows to follow the steps of development of bridges: from primitive beam bridges through Roman aqueducts, the industrial revolution, The Ironbridge and eventually to the state of the art Calatrava suspended bridges and the yet to be build world’s longest bridge – The Strait of Messina – connecting mainland Italy with Sicily.
It is clear that for constructing new bridges I could use technology already available. But I don’t want to be limited only by technical specifications.
Archigram architect group had visionary ideas in the 60-ties of the XX century and now some of their ideas are realised in new versions – especially in Japan and USA.
The project of a Liner bridge in which I would like to place an old liner ship across the Thames river with 4 entrances/mobile stairs/supporting constructions was inspired by Ron Herron “Walking City” but still my project is relatively easy to realise as a real movable town in its own. The object would be located as a bridge.
Sometimes it is good to look at our world and cities from a different perspective. When looking at the Thames River from the Google Earth view and airplane pictures we can start to think of constructing a superstructure bridge crossing the whole of London, especially where the river is bending and the area is under or before regeneration.
In the case of London it would be a bridge spanning from Royal Victoria Dock through the Greenwich peninsula (Millennium Dome) to the Canary Wharf and then turning to Greenwich.
We could make new pathways connecting areas where the river is the main barrier.
When I say ‘barrier’ I think of flood Thames Barrier and next to it the Thames Barrier Park in Silvertown. It is an interesting area, already partly regenerated but it could still be improved by changing the utility-only construction into a walking bridge using existing constructions especially that there is no other bridge in many miles. The stainless steel construction of the barrier could be rebuilt into small skyscrapers, modern cathedrals with chapels, galleries, offices inside. We could play with scale and our living bridge could look from distance as the downtown centre. We don’t have to think of a car transport bridge because there is a tunnel close by.
Living Bridges project is showing how some parts of our cities could look like. Some of the ideas seem only dreams but why not make a few of those dreams come true.
Within the next moths I want to focus on creating hyper-realistic bridges from my sketches because photography, photoshop and 3D visualisation programmes can present in a convincing way my ideas.
It would be great if my project had a ‘second life’ (contrary to the web’s Second Life) in real life in the close future.
Bibliography
Peter Murray & Mary Anne Stevens „Living bridges – the inhabited bridge, past, present and future” (Prestel – Verlag, 1996)
Simon Sadle „Archigram – architecture without architecture” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005)
Emilio Ambasz “Casa de retiro espiritual” (Skira, 2005)
David J.Brown “Bridges, three thousand years of defying nature” (Reeds International Books Ltd, 1993)
Ulrich Conrads & Hand G.Sperlich „Fantastic Architecture” (The Architectural Press, London, 1963)
Christophe Canto & Odile Faliu „ The history of the future” (Flammarion, 1993)
Marianne Butler „ London architecture” (Metro Publications, 2006)
Jason Hawkes “Over London. A century of change” (HarperCollins, 2000)
