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Near my hometown in Ontario, Canada there was a small covered bridge that was — and surely still is — the darling of the area. I remember when friends and family visited from abroad we would all pile into the station wagon and head into the countryside to see that lovely red bridge.
Now, living in Portland, I travel the bridges that span the Willamette. I love to drive across the Fremont bridge and look south to the many bridges lined up across the river. One of those bridges is the Hawthorne, and this year it celebrates its centennial anniversary.
The 100th year piqued the imagination of a local bridge enthusiast and an installation artist. Together they created the PDX Bridge Festival. The festival is a celebration of bridges of every kind and will include art exhibitions, concerts, light shows, tours and even a brunch (on grass!) on the Hawthorne bridge.
This huge event has left us wondering: what makes bridges so beautiful? Do you have a favorite bridge? Is it a historic covered bridge like the one from my childhood? Or an expansive piece of architecture like some of the bridges along the Oregon coast? Why do you like it?
Tagged as: architecture · art
Photo credit: Lecates / Creative Commons
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I am disappointed with the proposals of the I-5 Columbia River Crossing Replacement Bridge. IT is one of the BEST VISTAS on the most famous river west of the Mississipi, the Legendary COLOMBIA RIVER.
From the current bridge you have an unrestricted view of Mt. HOOD, the start of the Columbia Gorge, the mouth of the Willamette River, downtown Vancouver, the Historical First Settlement of Fort Vancouver with its sharpened battlements, the High Speed NW Rail, natural bird flyover wetlands and the broad Mile Wide Waters of Columbia with sailboats, houseboats, salmon fisherman, transoceanic cargo ships and sometimes even Huck Finn children fishing. The Columbia is calm and sometimes foaming but always beautiful. Very few state borders have such a wonderful crossing.
The current bridge proposal is described as a concrete single level slab like the deck of an Aircraft Carrier. It would resemble the current I-205 bridge. It is utilitarian and has a broad back for 8 lanes, but proabably because of budget, will be as plain as any freeway overpass or freeway bypass junction.
I think this is an unsurpassed opportunity of 3 Generations to shape the beauty of the vista for the next 150-200 years. WE NEED A BEAUTIFUL BRIDGE CROSSING ON THE COLUMBIA. A suspension bridge, a modern bridge, a towering bridge, a landmark that defines the Northwest. Where thousands of photographers would descend to see the bridge in all aspects of weather, light and sunset. We should light it up in changeable high effiiciency floodlights and Christmas string lights to make it a nightime landmark. Think of the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE IN San Francisco.
I-5 is the Aorta of the Northwest. It is our single most important trade corridor. We must replace it. We owe it to future generations to make it aesthetic and great, not adequate and the 'lowest possible bid.' This bridge may be around for 150 years...don't just think narrowly about the budget for the next 5-10 years. I would gladly pay a toll for a landmark bridge.
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They are fundamental. They are an architecture of movement, a conquest over geography. There is a clarity in their mission, in their structure, in their purpose, that is rarely found in other forms of architecture. Their function is immediately apparent. They cross a gap, a gape in this earth, a terrifying body of water---they provide a more direct route from A to B. Their inherent minimal nature is easy to appreciate, because it is not clouded by layers of superficial complexity, you immediately know why they are there, and what they do---you know the score. They have no hidden rooms, or curtained windows---they invite all to enter, all to pass through, and their exit is always out the other side. They are never boring, because we are constantly moving through them. They remind us that the earth, that nature, still exists---that it must be traversed, that it can be brutal---but we, in response, can also be clever---but it takes work!
Even with all our advancements, our trips to look outside this world, still there are holes in our maps that require an equal combination of architecture and engineering, to link us to them. We have to lay our ropes, our cables, our boards, our steel, our concrete, to get to the other side. Navigating this world wasn’t always this easy. Before our predecessors built these bridges, the distance traveled was further, it was an arduous journey---we have to smile at their ingenuity, at the shortcuts they left for us---we scream down into the gap ‘you can’t stop me!’ Their engineering is rarely hidden, it is on the outside for all to see---their strength is their structure, and their muscle is at once apparent. Bridges are our friends, our silently powerful helpers---they are a democratic architecture of convenience.
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Nice piece of writing, scottmil.
A nicely written bridge to bridges, if I might be allowed to say.
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Tom,
Thanks very much.
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The Steel Bridge is amazing. At one time a helicopter could be flying over the bridge, cars are driving on it, light rail trains are going across it, freight trains are going across it, and pedestrians and bicyclists are using it. Then there's the boats going under it. That's like 7 different kinds of transportation all piled on top of each other.
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Advanced, High-Tech Bridges are still being built today. Some will be the Longest Spanning, Highest and Tallest ever built. And the engineering is unimagineable before the age of computers and advanced design software. It is fantastic in scale and wonderful in aesthetics.
This is an amazing compliation of bridge photos just from China:
http://www.slideshare.net/ag205/chinas-amazing-bridges-4491503
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While I appreciate all bridges for their function, I most enjoy back country foot bridges.
The Drift Creek Bridge, about 10 miles inland from Lincoln City, is 240 feet long and accessed after hiking or wheelchairing about 2 miles from a good parking lot. From the bridge and the creekside lunch spot below, falls from a tributary add a special dimension. For this and other beautiful bridges built by a local Seattle company, see sahale.com.
I appreciate the different view on wildness that such bridges provide as well as the history of each bridge. Bridges provide unique engineering challenges; they draw talented engineers and contractors to them, in the same way that commercial jetliners are loved by those who design and build them. They are labors of love.
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Where I grew, if you climbed up on the roof, you could see Canada. Once or twice as I kid, my friends and I did this and we could see the Ambassador Bridge crossing from Detroit into Windsor, Ontario. Soon I realized how much I liked to gaze at suspension bridges, especially at night. Then I went to northern Michigan and saw the Mackinac Bridge. Wow, what a beautiful setting and an impressive bridge! Then I moved to Portland and saw the St. John’s Bridge, engineered earlier by the same engineer that did the Mackinac Bridge. Now, I ride my bike over the St. Johns Bridge as often as I can and stop wherever I am to view it! Love the St Johns!
JimR
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I was fortunate enough to get a private tour of the Hawthorne and Morrison Bridges last week. We were able to ride to the top of the Hawthorne Bridge as it raised to let a boat pass. It was an entirely new and exciting way to see the city. But I was most amazed with the 1 million pound counterweights that lowered as the bridge raised. Being one of lone planners among a group of engineers, it gave me a new appreciation for the skill and knowledge required to make such a grand structure.
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The 1913 Van Buren Bridge on Highway 34 at Corvallis, is my favorite bridge. It is the oldest of the only two remaining swing span bridges in Oregon, and a rare example of an obsolete pin-connected movable span truss bridge in Oregon. The bridge is now a single lane, one way bridge across the Willamette River eastbound from the north end of downtown Corvallis.
The swing span operated by muscle power. When steamboats needed to pass the span, a large key – that resembled a huge old-fashioned roller skate key – was inserted in the deck mechanism. Six burly individual were recruited from the nearby warehouse district, and three on a side, turned the key in a circle, allowing the central portion of the bridge to swing on its central pier, opening the bridge to allow steamboats to pass through.
Originally, Benton County provided most of the funding for the Van Buren Bridge, with smaller contributions by Linn County, private citizens of Linn County, the City of Corvallis, and one contractor. Importantly, the first women's vote in Benton County was a bond election to underwrite the costs of bridge construction.
The Van Buren Bridge last opened for river traffic on October 5, 1960. Today it still serves auto-traffic and in the future, it will provide a bike/pedestrian link from the current Riverfront Park on the west side of the Willamette River to city parks on the east side.
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Wow, I lived in Corvallis in the early 1960s and then late 1960s and drove over that bridge many times and I did not know that about it.
Nice bit of history.
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Please speak to the naming of the Hawthorne Bridge. Was it always called Hawthorne ?
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PRIVATELY OWNED BRIDGE: The railroad owns the Steel bridge!
Surprised you would say no one knows the answer...you read the blog as you are on the air, yes?
Some of us can't call because we are at work.
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Sorry, OskiFan!
My apologies. We were flooded with calls and it was a super-busy morning. We missed your answer, but you were right!
Dave
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My favorite bridge has been the Steele Bridge ever since I wrote a report on it in second grade. I love the dark steel and the tall pilars, and I love all the strong triangles you can see in it's design. I love the fact that it's unique, the only double decker bridge with independant lifts!
I am so excited to be going on my 7th Bridge Pedal ride this August so I can get an up close view of our awesome bridges.
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There is a beautiful high concrete bridge on the downhill driving in to Yakima, WA from the north.
I always try to imagine the construction of bridges, the people who engineered them and then the people who actually built them. The cranes, the concrete formwork, the high ironwork, the spooling out of cables and connections. So many bridges are very high and over long spans of water and both of those problems make for extraordinary methods in construction techniques.
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That new bridge between Denmark and Sweden is an extraordinary beauty. I have forgotten the name of it.
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I suggest to all who haven't done so to experience the bridges by riding their bike over one or more, the Morrison is now great because of the big wide safe bike lane, and another great way to see them is to take a boat under them! An amazing way to experience the bridges and the river from a vantage point many don't see. I have lived in PDX my entire life, and crossed the bridges thousands of times, but the view from a bike or the river adds a wonderful new dimension!
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My favorite bridge is the Broadway Bridge. Whenever I am away from Portland for an extended period of time and come back, that red bridge always stands out in the landscape to let me know I am home. I also commute by bike from N. Portland to Beaverton every day for work and it gets me across to the Westside. Now it is closed for a month for construction and I really miss going across it.
Thanks,
Scott from N. Portland
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I still favor the Million Dollar bridge from Portland to South Portland, Maine. A drawbridge built when a million was an impressive amount of construction.
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Even commuting everyday to work can be relaxing or breathtaking when I drive onto the St. Johns Bridge in the morning mist under dramatic green arches. And, when I return home to St. Johns, 3 mountains often await in a semi-circle! Add a barge underneath, perhaps geese or a hawk flying overhead, and I'm in my very own St. Johns church...feeling blessed.
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Those old Roman aquaduct stone arch bridges always amaze me. How did they construct the formwork and haul, lift, and shape the stones for those? And the engineering?
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I cross the Burnside Bridge twice a day...and I love it with a passion. Walking along the east esplanade you can admire it's many moods and watch the sun set on the Willamette. Portlands bridges remind me of Paris...most of all I love them because they remind me daily that I can cross boundaries.
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The St. Johns bridge is not only a beautiful piece of artwork in itself, but it is also a frame for the natural artwork around us. As you drive over it into St. Johns, the arch on the bridge perfectly frames one of our beautiful mountains, with Mt Hood to the right and another mountain just to the left. I love coming home over our bridge on sunny clear days!
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Why the terrible beeps on the Hawthorne? The other bridges have nice bells that clang when the bridges are up, you'd think that the bridge that gets the most walking and biking traffic would not turn into an excruciating torture chamber when the lift goes up, especially since it goes up more often than the other bridges do.
How about it, Multnomah County? For the Hawthorne's 100th, get rid of the annoying beep alert! Maybe a sweet clangy bell like the Burnside has.
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My husband is one of the "pilebutts" that worked on the I 205 build. He's worked on several others doing repair and so forth. Will there be some exhibitions of how bridges are built during the festival?
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Here in Eugene we don't have so many car bridges crossing the Willamette, but we do have a lot of bike/ped bridges. They also cross the freeways and are beautifully designed.
I wish we had a couple more small car bridges crossing the Willamette that were gorgeous, but for some reason I guess they aren't built small anymore.
I love that Portland is building a mass transit, bike/ped bridge. It will add to the nice family of bridges there. I have tried to come up with a Mnemonic phrase to remember them by. Anyone have a good one that's in correct order?
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Kind of a seperate issue, but thought of it when Dr. Hawthorne and his namesake bridge came up. As a member of Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery, I am familiar with his place among Oregon historical greats. A lot of people don't know how much he did for his patients.
He frequently paid for cremation and burial of deceased patients out of pocket. They were often buried in the section now known as block 14. Much has been made of the Chinese that were buried there and supposedly moved, but almost no mention of patients are made. We are hoping to bring this issue further to the forefront, and raise money to add something to the block 14 monument to represent Asylum patients. If anyone is interested they can contact Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery via Facebook or Myspace, or by coming by the cemetery at 26th and Stark. We also have a website at friendsoflonefircemetery.org.
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I caught the end of the show too late to be on the air, but a couple of years ago I wrote a song incorporating most of the Portland bridges. It was part of a broader project I did, where I wrote a whole album of songs about Portland, and I thought the bridges deserved their own song. You can hear the song here: http://www.portlandsongs.com/CrossingOver.mp3 More general information about the song and the project is at portlandsongs.com.
Every time I cross the bridges, I know we have the best city in the world.
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That was lovely!
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One of my regular walks when I lived in Warsaw, Poland in 2008 was along the historic Vistula River. The river portion of my walk ended at the Most Poniatowshiego, the Poniatowski Bridge. The arched spans of this bridge are frequently photographed but its most interesting features to me were the towers on the west end, each of which housed small businesses. I spent a couple of evenings enjoying wine and conversation with friends in the top floor of one of those towers and was awed by the fact that we were "in" a bridge.
The bridge was build in 1915 so survived two wars. In World War II it was badly destroyed and re-bulit to its prior glory. During the Warsaw Uprising near the end of WWII, the bridge could have been used by the Russians who were camped on the east side of the Vistula. The Poles sought the Russians help which they kept promising but never delivered all the while the Nazis slaughtered over 200,000 Poles in Warsaw then systematically set about destroying the city.
For some good photos of this bridge, go to http://www.google.com/images?q=most+poniatowskiego+foto&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=wctJTPX0IMSDnQfa3Z3jDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CB0QsAQwAA&biw=1016&bih=566
Jerry Kolasinski
Austin, Texas
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Not to be a downer but all the talk of bridges lately....we should keep in mind that the bridges have also been sight of some great losses for Portland. Graham we have not forgotten you. I think about you every time I go over that goddam bridge.
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Unfortunately misguided ecologism in this area, seems to be killing our capacity to conceive of aesthetically forward thinking bridges. Many of the bridges from the past, that we love, would not be built today, because many would view them as monolithic and distracting---many seem to want bridges that aesthetically blend in, that are not iconic, that are safe. As if, mediocrity were less pretentious, and muted materials were more authentic, and less of a spine was a sign of respect for some kind of oneness with ‘nature.’ What this amounts to is deception, the same kind of deception you find at Disney World, but turned around---if we make a bridge look like a branch, or like the other bridges, then, it won’t appear to have a heavy footprint, regardless of the structural realities of the design and the actual environmental impact. It is time we stopped confusing and blurring physical impacts with aesthetic impacts.
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My favorite bridge is the 35 foot ADA -compliant (upcoming story on Americans with Disabilities Act fits this, too), pedestrian bridge my son Matthew built for his Eagle Scout project. In 1996, the flooding of Wilson River closed the access to the building site, but it was finished later. This bridge symbolizes the cooperative efforts and expertise of all who helped (Troop 685, Beaverton), the engineering expertise and other voluntary support, and cooperation from the State Forester, Randy. This was the first of what now is several bridges across Gales Creek near Gales Creek Campground.
M. Torgeson
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Around 1991 I took most of a January off and drove Hwy 1 (101) all the way down from Florence, OR, through San Diego and there are a lot of bridges over those coastal creeks, streams, and rivers. I took my time sightseeing and I would often turn around and drive back over the bridges and stop and look at them from the side and from under them.
That's a great drive and I'd put Oregon coastal scenery right alongside the Big Sur in beauty. I was not looking for bridges, just sightseeing, but the bridges were cool too.
I don't know what it's like now but most campgrounds were open in that time of year and pretty empty. And of course rain gear was often necessary.
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I love Portland's bridges, especially by bike at night. One of the coolest things I've done though has to be biking on the Fremont and Marquam bridges during Bridge Pedal. You will never see or experience those bridges in the same way again.
If you love bridges you should check it out, August 8th. The BTA is looking for volunteers to support this 17,000+ person ride if you're interested, www.bta4bikes.org/volunteer
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Bridges are a podium to highlight our engineering prowess. The water provides scenic medium to reflect and play with light. The water makes it dynamic and changing with weather and seasons even when we just stand on the banks.
We show off our material science; Wood, Iron, Steel Stone and Cement. There are towers, pediments arches and natural vistas that make bridges archietectural ICONS. Plus these are functional and link people, trade and unify our country. Few objects can combine aesthetics and function in a package that lasts 100-200 years. They are a time capsules and a bridge to our past as well as across the river.