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The image is an illustration of a rejected proposal for a bridge over Sydney Harbour, prior to the construction of the current Sydney Harbour Bridge. The proposal, titled "A Cheap and Practical Proposal," featured a central island tower with multiple bridge spans.Looks practical to me.
Beautiful design, but a nightmare in reality. First, the engineering of the central tower (to be strong enough to support three suspension bridges) would have to be huge - like 50 to 60 stories huge - and so ridiculously over-reinforced for structural integrity as to border on insanity. Perhaps relatively "cheap" to build, the ongoing maintenance and upkeep costs for something like this would eat up any savings seen from the initial investment very quickly.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this doesn't even bring into the picture the catastrophic failure of the entire design if even just one of those suspension bridges failed in any fashion; if one snapped, the stress load pressure would automatically transfer to the other two, causing them to fail (kind of like a tripod that suddenly loses a leg).
Also, I don't see an effective or efficient way for traffic guidance and control; about the only thing I can come up with would be a traffic circle, but then that would require such slow speeds in the central tower that it would effectively bottleneck all three bridges and case backups forever. If it takes just as long to get across this monstrosity as it does to take a ferry, then what's the point?
Beautiful? Yeah, on paper. Cheap? Maybe (at first)... Practical? No way. But then again, I'm no expert. 😁
You find the most interesting things, Rick...
Die geplante Gedenkbrücke für General Grant ähnelt den Turmportalen der Tower Bridge in London, der Karlsbrücke in Prag und den abgerissenen Turmportalen der Hohenzollernbrücke in Köln.
ReplyDelete(vVs)
Agreed, vVs - obviously the Charles Bridge is the oldest, but I think all are excellent examples of bridges of when the architectural styles believed that style was just as equally important as function. I think we lost something when we hit the Modernist and Brutalist architectural periods; both have a stark beauty in their own ways, but they just don't seem to compare to older styles of architecture.
DeleteI was in Cologne back in the 1970's and a good part of the landmarks of the city were still in ruins; however, even in those states you could see the absolute beauties that they once were. I really applaud the German people and state for being so meticulous in their restoration projects after the war (especially places like the Berlin Cathedral!); I wish we here in the US had such a drive for preservation and restoration of our heritage sites!
I used to live in Sydney as a child and crushed both over and under the imposing ‘Coathanger’ many times, such an awesome structure and design, when it was under construction it was colloquially known as ‘Thr Iron Lung’ as it’s employment to build literally kept folk alive!
ReplyDeleteHugs BobM now in 🇬🇧 x