Archive Category: Architecture
Greenpix: Giant Solar-Powered LED Wall in China
Behold the Greenpix Zero Energy Media Wall, a gigantic LED wall completely powered by solar energy!
Gizmodo has the story:
Greeting visitors attending the Xicui entertainment complex near the site of the games is a 20,000 square foot wall of computer-controlled LEDs, the largest of its kind ever built. Better yet, the wall manages to power itself completely using only the sun.
The GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall, designed by Simon Giostra & Partners and Arup, uses thousands of solar capture cells attached to each of its glass panels to charge up during the day and then release dazzling light shows at night. It’s the first time perforated photovoltaics laminated in glass have ever been used in a building in China, but if all goes off without a hitch, it most certainly won’t be the last.
Link | Greenpix website | YouTube video at Technabob
World’s Most Expensive Home: $2 Billion Skyscraper!
When the Ambani residence is finished next year, it will be the most expensive home in the world: a 27-story skyscraper in downtown Mumbai. The cost? $2 billion!
But the Ambani family can well afford it, because Mukesh Ambani, head of India’s petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, is the fifth richest man in the world and is worth $43 billion.
Forbes has the story:
The home will cost more than a hotel or high-rise of similar size because of its custom measurements and fittings: A hotel or condominium has a common layout, replicated on every floor, and uses the same materials throughout the building (such as door handles, floors, lamps and window treatments).
The Ambani home, called Antilla, differs in that no two floors are alike in either plans or materials used. At the request of Nita Ambani, say the designers, if a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn’t be used on the eleventh floor, for example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition.
Antilla’s shape is based on Vaastu, an Indian tradition much like Feng Shui that is said to move energy beneficially through the building by strategically placing materials, rooms and objects.
Link | Photo Gallery - via Growabrain
The Shipping Container Building
Remember the post on the Shipping Container House in Wellington, New Zealand? Well, Neatorama reader Marten told us about entire buildings built from shiping containers in the Netherlands.
A little search brought me to Keetwonen, a student housing project in Amsterdam by a company called TempoHousing:
Keetwonen, a student housing project in Amsterdam, turns shipping containers into 1000 units and provides all the amenities a student could ever want. And aside from the obvious green usage of surplus shipping containers, Keetwonen has integrated a rooftop to accommodate efficient rainwater drainage while providing heat dispersal and insulation for the containers beneath. [...]
Containers are home to not only the 1000 units that each have a private balcony, but a cafe, supermarket, office space, and even a sports area. Units are arranged in “blocks,” each block containing a service unit with centralized electricity, internet, and networking systems.
Link - Thanks Marten!
16 Abandoned & Decaying Hotels From Around The World
It’s a pity that marvelous old architecture is left to rot, often due to lack of funds for repairs. But there’s beauty to be found in the ruins, as you’ll see in this collection of abandoned hotels from all over. The stories these walls could tell! Pictured is the Bokor Palace Hotel and Casino in Cambodia. Link -Thanks, Andy!
The Shipping Container House in New Zealand
Flickr user petraalsbach took a series of photos of the construction, as well as interior shots, of the Shipping Container House in Wellington, New Zealand.
The home is "built" using 3 shipping containers stacked on top of each other.
Link - via Jetson Green
The House(s) That Spite Built
Human emotion is a crazy thing. It can lead people to do irrational, silly and even spiteful things. So spiteful, in fact, they would erect an entire house just to irritate someone.
A spite house is exactly what it sounds like – a building that was built or altered for the sole purpose of exacting revenge. A person would have to be pretty seriously spiteful to spend the time, effort and money to construct a whole building in the name of anger. Let’s look at a few edifices that were born out of those emotions.
The Hollensbury Spite House
I can imagine that in 1830, having horses constantly trod near your house would get pretty irritating. The noise, for one thing, but all of those road apples being dropped wouldn’t be too pleasant, either. And that’s exactly how John Hollensbury of Alexandria, Va., felt about the alley next to his house that constantly received horse and foot traffic. So, to prevent people from using the alley, he built a seven-foot wide, 25-foot deep, two-story house. He actually used one wall of the existing house to construct the new house, so as a result the living room of the Spite House has deep gouges in the brick wall from the wheels of carriages brushing up against it. Photo from Michael Temchine of the New York Times
The Richardson Spite House
In Manhattan, at Lexington and 82nd, imagine a tiny apartment building created just to tick someone off. In 1882, two neighbors each owned a small plot of adjacent land. Each plot was only about 104 feet long and five feet wide. One of the men, Hyman Sarner, offered to purchase the land from his neighbor, Joseph Richardson, for $1,000. Richardson countered that the land was worth at least $5,000. When they failed to reach an agreement, Richardson built a rather impractical four-story apartment building on his tiny rectangle of land. It was demolished in 1915, unfortunately – I’d love to see that tiny little apartment building dwarfed by the huge buildings and museums near 82nd and Lex today. I bet the rent would be outrageous.
The Skinny House
The Skinny House in Boston is pretty well-known, at least in the area. The story goes that in 1874, a couple of brothers had a fight over the land they had jointly inherited from their father. Instead of properly settling the fight, one brother built a large home on the land while the other brother was away in the military. When the traveling brother returned home, he decided to spite his greedy brother and build a small house on what was left of the land they both owned, blocking his brother’s nice view.
It still stands today and is occupied. At its widest point, the Skinny House is just over 10 feet wide. The narrowest point in the house is only 6.2 feet wide.
The Edleston Spite House
Spiteful construction might seem like an American phenomenon, but it’s really not. England has seen its share of spite as well. In 1904, the Edleston family owned a plot of land next to the church yard of St. Mary’s in Gainford, England, where they attended church. When Joseph died, the family asked to build a monument in the churchyard in Joseph’s memory – he was a very active member of the church and had been for 41 years. The church said that the churchyard was already too full, but that the family could donate their land to the church and build something on that. Irked, the family built a house on the land next to the church, complete with a 40 foot column that pointed a V-sign (victory?) toward the church. The house is still there today, although I unfortunately couldn’t find any pictures of it.
The Tyler Spite House
You’ve been reading these and thinking “That’s great, but what I would really like to do is spend the night in a spite house,” haven’t you? Well, you’re in luck. The Tyler Spite House in Frederick, Md., is now a bed and breakfast. In 1814, Dr. John Tyler was the first American physician to perform a cataract operation. When the city made plans to extend a street directly through Tyler’s land, he did a little research and found that a local law prohibited building a road if work was under way on a “substantial” building in the path of the new road. He found this law just in time – he immediately had a building foundation poured on the small piece of his property that the new road would run through and effectively stopped the road from being built.
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+SU$80 Billion Dam for the Congo
A proposed hydroelectric dam on the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo could double the electricity available in all of Africa and bring power to hundreds of millions of people. Representatives from seven African countries are meeting with construction firms and bankers to plan construction on Grand Inga, as the dam is named.
Grand Inga was proposed in the 1980s but never got beyond feasibility studies because of political turmoil in central Africa. But now it stands a chance, according to Gerald Doucet, secretary general of the World Energy Council thinktank, which is convening the London meeting.
“It is the greatest sustainable development project, offering Africa a unique chance for interdependence and prosperity,” said Doucet. “It’s much more feasible now than ever. There is a peace settlement in Congo, and economic and technical studies have all shown it is possible.”
Some advocacy groups fear that even if an incredible amount of power is generated, it won’t benefit most citizens of Africa. Terry Hathaway of the organization International Rivers fears corruption in such a large project.
Hathaway said that the 94% of people in Congo DRC and the two in three Africans who have no electricity now were unlikely to benefit because the dam depends on exporting its electricity to existing centres of industry, especially in South Africa where there have been power shortages.
“As it stands, the project’s electricity won’t reach even a fraction of the continent’s 500 million people not yet connected to the grid. Building a distribution network that would actually light up Africa would increase the project’s cost exponentially. It would be very different if rural energy received the kind of commitment and attention now being lavished on Inga,” she said.
The proposed cost of the Grand Inga is estimated at $80 billion. Link -via Digg
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUBike Storage Tower in Tokyo, Japan
Parking your bike in Tokyo, Japan is so high tech! Check out this automated bicycle parking tower (capacity 9,400 bicycles) : Hit play or go to Link [YouTube, in Japanese but you'll get the idea] - via treehugger, thanks yoshi hashimoto!
Previously on Neatorama: Volkswagen’s New Car Storage Facility
Mole Man fined £300,000
A pensioner who created a labyrinth of tunnels under his house over 40 years has been forced to pay £300,000 for repairs carried out by a council.
Excavations by William Lyttle, 77, who is also known as the “mole man”, almost caused the property in Mortimer Road, Hackney, east London, to collapse.
…
In 2001, his digging led to a 15ft-wide hole in the public footpath.
An earlier news report gives an idea of the scale of his obsessive tunnelling:
AN eccentric known as The Mole Man has been banned from his £1million home after digging a 60ft network of tunnels beneath it.
William Lyttle, 75, spent 40 years burrowing under his 20-room house, removing 100 cubic metres of earth with a spade and pulleys.
It is now feared the street could give way. Philip Wilman, a surveyor for Hackney Council, told Thames magistrates: “There has been movement in the ground. He’s fortunate a London bus is not in his front garden. It’s liable to lead to catastrophe.”
…
The house is also filled with so much junk surveyors are worried about the pressure on the floors.
Houses Covered in Kudzu
Photo: Jack Anthony
Kudzu is a climbing vine introduced into the United States from Japan in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Expo as a forage crop and ornamental plan. In the early 1950s, US Department of Agriculture encouraged farmers to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion.
Fast forward a couple of decades later, kudzu is a fast growing weed that has infested about 11,000 square miles of the southeastern United States. It costs around $500 million every year in lost cropland and control costs.
Jack Anthony has a photo gallery of abandoned houses in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina that have been taken over by kudzu, noting that they make "interesting natural sculptures": Link - via Cynical-C
The Geyser Riders
The ‘sandhogs” who dug the subway line between Brooklyn and Manhattan used pressurized air to support their work. Occasionally, a hole would develop, and the response was to stick a sandbag in it. Sometimes this was not enough, as Dick Creedon found out on March 28th, 1905. He was sucked into the soil above the tunnel, pushed through the river, and blasted thirty feet into the air -and lived to tell about it! He later told the New York Times,
“Pooh! Pooh! It didn’t amount to such a lot. There were the four of us, and we were looking for a little trouble with the riverbed. Jack Hughes yells for bags, and as the boys pass them up I grabs them and puts them at the hole when I was drawed into the flow and shot out at the other end. Then all the sudden I strikes water and opens my eyes. I was flying through the air, and before I comes down I had a fine view of the city.”
Creedon had another experience with pressurized air sending him through the mud, when he broke the barrier between the two working ends of the dig. Read the stories of Dick Creedon and other “geyser riders” at Curious Expeditions. Link
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUGreen Parking Facility
The new parking garage at the Sant Monica Civic Center is stunning, and it’s on its way to becoming LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, too!
A solar photovoltaic array on the roof provides shade for top level parking and on-site renewable energy. The materials used in construction were recycled and finished with low-VOC paints and finishes. The building envelope utilizes low-e glazing to decrease heating and cooling loads and the mechanicals are energy efficient. A storm-drain water-treatment system helps reduce tainted runoff from directly entering the hydrosphere and greywater harvesting provides for landscaping and on-site facilities.
The garage has spaces set aside for electric vehicles, and offers free bike parking. However, Inhabitat points out that a “green” parking facility may be seen as an oxymoron, no matter how many environmentally-friendly features it has. Link -via Digg
Awesome Floating Staircases
Those two amazing sets of stairs are from the Didden Village project by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV. The project itself is a rooftop addition in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The exterior is a stark contrast to its surrounding (and may not be to everyone’s tastes), as you can see in the link below, but the interior stairs are amazing!
Embarrassing Moments in Engineering
Don’t you just hate it when you spend millions of dollars for a large construction, only to find out there is something fundamentally wrong underneath? Oh yeah, especially when the failure becomes apparent during a big public grand opening. It happens, and mental_floss has a look at four cases of embarrassing (and expensive) mistakes in huge projects. Link
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUThe Woman Who Married the Berlin Wall
At the Berlin Biennial this year, a number of artistic endeavours examine various aspects of the city - few as show-stopping as a film about a Swedish woman who married the Berlin Wall:
“Among the broken lumps of masonry and rubbish is a shed in which a film by Lars Laumann tells the story of a Swedish woman who fell in love with the Berlin Wall and now believes they are husband and wife. In the dark, my jaw dropped. The story, I realised, is not a spoof. Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer really is Mrs Berlin Wall, and lives with her now retired husband, in the form of various small barbed-wire-topped models of himself, in a village in northern Sweden. She says the day the wall came down was an absolute disaster, but she loves her wall just the same. As well as her beloved husband and numerous cats, she also keeps various scale-models of guillotines for company. What turns her on is parallel lines, rectangular shapes, forms that divide (such as walls), and others that connect (such as bridges). Don’t ask about the guillotines. She says she’s an object-sexualist, and believes that objects have souls, feelings, desires and thoughts they share with her telepathically.“
For more information see BerlinerMauer.se, a set of sites which also includes: The Berlin Wall - The Best and Sexiest Wall ever existed!!! and Love poems for the Berlin Wall.
Beach vase
I only live 15 minutes from the beach and it has been recently announced that the above confection of glass will soon grace its southern end.The beach already hosts Antony Gormley’s Another Place and the “vase”, with its walkway that juts out into the river, is the winning design for the Mersey Observatory, which will replace the radar tower that currently stands guard over the mouth of Mersey.
Looking north we can see beach snaking off for a couple more miles peppered with the statues.
For more concept art see the Architect’s Journal.
Beer Bottle Bricks
In the 1960s, Heineken got the brilliant idea of making square beer bottles … so that after you’re done drinking the beer, you can use the bottles as bricks!
Made in England by Gentlemen blog has the pics of a wall built out of Heinies: Link
Time Lapse Video of a Katrina-Damaged Home Tear Down and Rebuild
I don’t know why it’s so interesting, but it is: Here’s a time lapse of a tear down and a modular build of a house damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
No words on how many days it took to tear-down and build (the whole project took 8 months, but that included the time it took to get permits, utility hookups, etc.)
Link [embedded brightcove Flash video] - Thanks Betsy!
The Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower
In 1929, a fish lodge owner was fed up with mosquito problems in the Lower Keys in Florida. So he decided to fight the bugs by bringing in their predator: bats.
But his cleverly hatched plan had a flaw:
In 1929 frustrated local businessman Richter Clyde Perky decided the time had come to rid his holiday resort of mosquitoes and the threat of both malaria and commercial failure.
His idea was to invest in a structure called a Bat Tower, the invention of a Texan ‘Bat Researcher’ by the name of Dr. Campbell who believed that the towers would provide an attractive home for bats, well-known gobblers of mosquitoes.
The plans in place, Mr Perky installed the huge wooden Bat Tower at great cost, shipped in hundreds of bats from Texas and Cuba and put the Champagne on ice. As soon as the bats were released they flew away, never to return.
The charming Bat Tower, minus the resort it was meant to save, can still be seen and photographed at mile marker 17 of Lower Sugarloaf Key. Watch out for the mosquitoes.
Read about this and other equally fascinating unfinished or abandoned structures in Florida here: Link - Thanks David!
Paint on Solar Power!
Dave Worsley and a team of engineers at Swansea University were researching ways to protect steel when they hit on the idea of painting sheets of steel with solar cell paint.
The idea is to coat every piece of steel cladding with a solar cell paint. As steel is passed through the rollers multiple coatings of of the solar cell system are applied to it. Based on the preliminary research, the materials that are being applied are suited to capturing low level solar radiation, which means that they should work just as well in areas where the sun doesn’t directly shine on them.
The innovation here is to equip the materials before building construction instead of adding solar paint as an afterthought.
If the Solar Paint project gets off the ground, it is expected that they would be able to press around 30 to 40m2 a minute. This may not sound like much, but put it into perspective: according to Dr. Worsley, if all the steel cladding produced by just one manufacturer was produced to be energy generating, at a very conservative energy exchange rate of 5%, it would be the equivalent of 50 wind farms, or roughly 4,500 gigawatts of electricity, per year.
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUThe Eiffel Tower to be “Modded” Next Year
To celebrate the 120th Anniversary of the Eiffel Tower next year, Paris will "mod" the iconic landmark by extending the 3rd floor of the Eiffel Tower!
The design was created by Serero Architects, who won a design competition. The "ruffles" will be built from carbon Kevlar to give visitors an improved 360° view of Paris and double the capacity of the platform. If you’re a purist, don’t fret: the structure is only temporary.
Previously on Neatorama: The Eiffel Tower Story
Sagrada Familia Cathedral and Other UNESCO World Heritage Sites in LEGO
Photo: hatayanaorg favorite blog on all things LEGO (here’s one reason why), has a really neat post about the piece of Peace exhibit in Japan. It features UNESCO World Heritage sites built out of LEGO bricks by Kazuyoshi Naoe.
This one above is the Sagrada Familia cathedral, which looks just as impressive in real life.
Previously on Neatorama: 10 Divinely Designed Churches
Two Impressive Shiny Balls
The eye you see here is a planetarium, L’Hemisfèric in Valencia, Spain. The bottom half is its reflection in the water. See more pictures of it and La Géode, a spherical IMAX theater in Paris in the post Extremely Impressive Shiny Balls. Link
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUOne Log House
The Famous One Log House is a one-bedroom house hollowed out from a single log that came from a 2,100-year old redwood tree:
After felling this 13 foot diameter forest giant, Art Schmock and a helper needed 8 months of hard labor to hollow out the log into a room 7 ft. high and 32 ft. long, weighing about 42 tons.
Link - via Crazytopics
10 Most Beautiful Bridges in the World
We’ve come a long way in bridge building since crossing a river on a fallen log. The first bridges were built with wooden planks, ropes and stones. Soon, stronger material were required. Wood and stone bridges gave way to iron, then to steel ones. Bridge building techniques also evolved: beam, cantilevered, cable-stayed, and suspension bridges - each with advantages that made it the right choice for a particular location.
Political fortunes and wars have been made or lost by bridges. Throughout history, bridges had been built by engineers and burned by warriors, and crossed by kings and commoners alike. Millions of people owe their livelihood to bridges, as most require them to commute; and yet thousands of people choose to end their lives by jumping off them every year.
Bridges are stylish: from classical to modern, they are as much a work of art as they are marvels of engineering. To celebrate the wonders of "classic" bridges, here are Neatorama’s picks for the Top 10 Most Beautiful Bridges in the World:
10. Khaju Bridge
Photo: twocentsworth [Flickr]
Khaju Bridge at night. Photo: Jovika [Flickr]
The Khaju Bridge (Pol-e-Khajoo) in Isfahan, Iran, was built in the 17th century by Shah Abbas II. The bridge also serves as a dam, with sluice gates under the archways. When the gates are closed, the water level behind the bridge is raised to irrigate gardens alongside the Zayandeh River.
The Khoju Bridge has two stories of arcades, marked by the distinctive intersecting arches decorated with richly colored tiles. At the center of the bridge, there are two large pavilions, called the Prince Parlors, that were originally reserved for the Shah.
9. Pont du Gard
Pont du Gard. Photo: zak mc [Flickr]
Pont du Gard, an aqueduct spanning the Gard River in southern France, is a masterpiece of Roman engineering. It wasn’t built to transport people (though there is a pedestrian footbridge on it) - instead, it was part of a complex aqueduct system that carried water over 30 miles (about 50 km) to the ancient Roman city of Nemausus (now Nîmes).
The Pont du Gard was built by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (63 - 12 BC), the son-in-law of Caesar Augustus. The bridge’s stones, some of which weigh up to 6 tons, were cut perfectly to fit together without any mortar.
The wedge-shaped stones, known as voussoirs, were arranged in three levels, the top-most being the water conduit. So precise was the engineering that the entire system descends only 56 ft. (17 m) vertically - over 30 miles! - to deliver 5 million gallons (20,00 m3) of water to the city.
8. Bridge of Sighs
The Bridge of Sighs. Photo: Eugenia y Julian [Flickr]
In the 19th century, Lord Byron named a Venetian limestone bridge across the Rio di Palazzo connecting the Doge’s prison to the interrogation room in the main palace, the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri). Supposedly, the prisoners would sigh when they look out the window - with stone bars no less - to see their last view of beautiful Venice before their imprisonment, torture or execution.
In reality, Doge’s prison held mostly small-time criminals. Also, the bridge was built in 1600 by Antonio Contino, after the days of the inquisitions and summary executions. Legend has it that if lovers kissed on a gondola underneath the Bridge of Sighs at sunset, their love would last for eternity.
7. Iron Bridge
Iron Bridge. Photo: johnmuk [Flickr]
Iron bridge at night. Notice how the bridge and its reflection make a perfect circle.
Photo: Mark Haythorne [Flickr]
The Iron Bridge, spanning the Severn river in Shropshire, England, isn’t a particularly large or ornate bridge, but it does have something that made it unique: it’s the first bridge made completely out of cast iron.
In the 18th century, Shropshire was rich in iron and coal - indeed, there were more iron factories within two-mile radius of the town than any other city in the world. It was also there that iron was first smelt with coke. So it was only natural that the bridge would be made out of iron, a stronger alternative to wood. (Photo of the railing: zorro [Flickr])
Architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard proposed a single arch bridge that would let boats pass underneath, but he died before the bridge was built. The construction of the Iron Bridge was carried out by a local master ironworker named Abraham Darby III. About 400 tons (363 tonnes) of cast iron was used, with about 800 separate castings. The Iron Bridge has 5 arch ribs, each cast in two halves. It only took three months to put the parts together (which they did using screws instead of bolts!).
The ease and speed of the Iron Bridge’s construction helped convince engineers of the versatility and strength of iron, and helped usher in the Industrial Revolution era. Darby, however, didn’t fare so well: he severely underestimated the cost to build the bridge, and remained in debt for the rest of his life. (Source)
6. Covered Bridges
The West Montrose Covered Bridge on the Grand River, Ontario, Canada. It’s known locally as the Kissing Bridge. Photo: gojumeister [Flickr]
Pisgah Covered Bridge in southern Randolph County, North Carolina. It was washed away by a flood in 2003, but rebuilt with 90% of the original wood. It’s now one of two historic covered bridges left in the state. Photo: jimmywayne22 [Flickr]
Thomas Malone Covered Bridge in Beaver Creek State Park, Ohio.
Photo: c0reyann [Flickr]
Covered bridges are simply that: bridges that have enclosed sides and roof. Though technically the Bridge of Sigh, Ponte Vecchio, and the Wind and Rain Bridges in this list are covered bridges, this term usually means simple, single-lane bridges in rural settings.
Before they are made famous by the 1995 Clint Eastwood film The Bridges of Madison County, "kissing bridges" or "tunnels of love" have been the pride and joy of many small towns across Europe and especially Northern America where more than ten thousands of such bridges were built.
In the 19th century, timber was plentiful and cheap (or, in many cases, free). So it’s natural that these bridges were made of wood. But why were they covered? Well, lovers aside, the real reason was much more practical: the wooden beams of the bridge lasted longer when protected from the elements.
Unfortunately, due to neglect, theft of lumber, vandalism, and fire, most covered bridges in the United States and Canada have disappeared.
5. Ponte Vecchio
Ponte Vecchio. Photo: G|o®g|O
Ponte Vecchio at night. Photo: MrUllmi [Flickr]
The Ponte Vecchio is a medieval bridge over the Arno River. Actually, it’s much more than a bridge - it’s a street, a marketplace, and a landmark of Florence, Italy.
The Ponte Vecchio that we know today was built in 1345 by Taddeo Gaddi after an older span was destroyed in a flood. To finance the bridge, lots along the roadway were rented out to merchants, especially butchers and tanners, to hawk their wares.
In 1565, Duke Cosimo I de Medici ordered an architect named Giorgio Vasari to construct a roofed passageway. Soon after, jewelers, goldsmiths, and merchants of luxury goods pushed out the butchers out of Ponte Vecchio. Centuries of haphazard additions gave the bridge’s distinctive, irregular appearance today.
During World War II, after having survived many floods, the bridge faced its gravest threat: German bombers were blowing up bridges in Florence. It was a direct order from Hitler that spared Ponte Vecchio from certain destruction.
It is said that the word "bankruptcy" came from Ponte Vecchio. When a merchant failed to pay his debt, the table ("banco") he used to sell his wares was broken ("rotto") by soldiers. Not having a table anymore ("bancorotto"), meant the seller was bankrupt.
4. The Wind and Rain Bridge
Chengyang Bridge. Photo: mazakii that genius [Flickr]
The wind and rain bridges were a type of bridge built by the Dong people (a minority ethnic group) in China. Because they live in the lowlands and the valleys with many rivers, the Dong people are excellent bridge builders. They are called "wind and rain" bridges because the covered bridges not only let people cross the river, but also protect them from the elements.
The Dong people don’t use nails or rivets to build these bridges - instead, they dovetail all of the wood. The largest and most magnificent is the Chenyang Bridge, spanning the Linxi River near the Dong village of Maan. The bridge is about 100 years old, and like all wind and rain bridges, it was built without a single nail.
3. Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge. Photo: Dennis Gerbeckx [Flickr]
Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise. Photo: LemonSunrise [Flickr]
In 1855, engineer John Roebling started to design a bridge that at the time would be the longest suspension bridge in the world, with towers being the tallest structures in the Western Hemisphere: the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.
Today, the Brooklyn Bridge is one of the main crossings of the East River and one of the most heavily trafficked bridges in the world. But in the late 19th century, it took Roebling more than 14 years to convince the city to build the bridge.
After he got approval, Roebling was surveying a site when his foot was crushed by a ferry. Three weeks before the scheduled groundbreaking, he died of tetanus. His son, an engineer named Washington Roebling took over the project.
In 1872, while working on caissons to set the foundation for the towers, Washington fell ill with caisson disease (a decompression sickness commonly known as "the bends") that left him barely able to see, talk, or write. His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, rose to the occasion - she learned engineering on the fly and for nine years went to the job site to deliver her husband’s directions. Washington himself was said to watch the construction from his room through a binocular.
When the Brooklyn Bridge was opened, Emily was honored with the first ride over the bridge. She held a rooster, a symbol of victory, in her lap. Washington himself rarely visited the bridge till his death in 1926.
One interesting note about the Brooklyn Bridge: it stood fast while other bridges built around the same time had crumbled. Engineers credit Roebling for designing a bridge and truss system six times as strong as he thought it needed to be!
2. Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge at twilight. Photo: Diliff [wikipedia]
Tower Bridge at night. Photo: Andreas L [Flickr]
It’s funny to think about ancient traffic jams, but that was why the Tower Bridge in London, England was built. By the end of the 19th century, the development of the eastern part of London caused such a load on the London Bridge that the city decided to build a new bridge.
Construction of the Tower Bridge started in 1886, led by architect Sir Horace Jones and engineer Sir John Wolfe Barry. The design was a bascule (draw) bridge with two towers built on piers, so the bridge wouldn’t interefere with the port facilities nearby.
A year after construction was started, Jones died and his replacement, George D. Stevenson along with Barry decided to modify the design a little bit. Instead of the original brick facade design, the Tower Bridge had a more ornate Victorian Gothic style meant to harmonize it with the nearby Tower of London.
When the bridge opened in 1894, the public was aghast. H. Heathcote Statham, Fellow of the Royal Insitute of British Architect, wrote the familiar sentiment as thus: "The Tower Bridge … represents the vice of tawdriness and pretentiousness, and of falsification of the actual facts of the structure." (Source: Waddell, J., Bridge Engineering, Google Books)
But over time, people warmed up to the bridge. Indeed, the Tower Bridge grew to be one of London’s most recognizable landmarks. Even one of its loudest critics, architectural critic Eric de Maré conceded: the British people "have grown fond of the old fraud … and we must admit that it has carried on its task with admirable regularity and efficiency." (Source: Dupré, J., Bridges; 1997 Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers)
1. Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge in HDR as the first big storm of the season hits San Francisco.
Photo: vgm8383 [Flickr]
Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. Photo: mischiru [Flickr]
Golden Gate Bridge at night. Photo: justinwyne [Flickr]
The Golden Gate Bridge is such an iconic symbol of San Francisco (and of suspension bridge in general) that it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. But before it was built, most people thought it was an impossible task.
In 1916, the idea of a bridge to cross the Golden Gate, a narrow strait that separated San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Headlands, was conceived. Though it was almost immediately dismissed as the cost was estimated to be $100 million (astronomical for the time), a veteran bridge builder named Joseph Strauss lobbied for more than two decades to have it built.
The Golden Gate Bridge faced tough opposition: the Department of War thought it would interfere with ship traffic and the Southern Pacific Railroad opposed it as competition to its ferry service. At first, even the public didn’t like the bridge … because Strauss’ original design was deemed too ugly! But Strauss finally won, and after 22-years of drumming up support, the bridge was built. (Photo: SF Museum)
Strauss insisted that the project take worker’s safety seriously. It was the first major bridge project that used hard hats and a safety net. During the course of construction, 19 people were saved by the net to become members of the Halfway to Hell Club. (Source)
The color of the Golden Gate Bridge is actually not red - it’s an orange vermillion called International Orange. The color was chosen specifically because it complements the bridge’s natural surrounding yet enhances its visibility in the fog.
Construction took more than four years, at a cost of $27 million. The Golden Gate Bridge actually came in $1.3 million under budget (though 5 months late). For his work, Strauss got $1 million … and a lifetime bridge pass!
We’ll be the first to acknowledge that this list is far from complete. Modern beauties like the Millau Viaduct, the Erasmusbrug, or the Tsing Ma Bridge aren’t on it. (Well, we did say "classic" bridges …)
Nor is this the only "top 10 bridges" list on the Web. Though many of our picks are the same, there are enough differences between this list and others (like Frikoo’s 18 Stunning Bridges From Around the World, and Dark Roasted Blend’s World’s Most Interesting Bridges Part 1 and Part 2) that you should also check them out.
Finally, there are thousands of bridges in the world and hundreds of major bridges that are sources for local prides. If your town’s favorite span isn’t included here, please don’t get mad. Instead, let us know in the comment so interested readers can find them.
Military Operation on Urban Terrain (MOUT) Training Facilities
Photo: NATO Exercise Cooperative Osprey 1996, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
Bryan Finoki of Subtopia blog has an interesting post about "mysterious simulacrums of urban space":
… ghostly MOUT (Military Operation on Urban Terrain) training facilities where entire pseudo landscapes and quasi architectures are designed solely for the purposes of being conquered and reconquered, over and over again to help prepare the armed forces for counter-insurgency warfare in cities abroad–life inside a simulative architectural loop; landscape as militaristic prop.
The article goes on to talk about the "Mecca" of military urban training: a mysterious camp called CAMOUT being built deep in the middle of nowhere, USA:
So, what will a quarter of a billion dollars get you? Well, reading on we learn CAMOUT, if completed as planned, will include 1,560 buildings (some as high as five stories) in seven separate districts: the urban core (as previously described), east and west stadium districts, a hospital district, an ‘old town’ which will actually be modeled on Sadr City (a suburb of Baghdad), and finally an industrial district as well as a diplomatic district. “A city like no one has ever seen,” it will be “bisected by a river, already in place, that’s up to 80 feet wide in some spots,” even though in reality we are told it will contain absolutely no water. “Some areas will have buildings that have been reduced to rubble and there will be shanty towns around the city” …
Avalanche Control
“Avalanche control” sounds like a contradiction in terms, but deputydog has uncovered three ways people have engineered communities to protect homes from an avalanche. Building your home somewhere besides underneath a snowy mountain is not one of the three, although it is mentioned. Link