Pedestrian Ways: Modern Pedestrian Bridges

These are some modern pedestrian bridges around the world:

Source: Te-Ming Chang

London Millennium Footbridge, London, UK, 2000 designed by Arup, Foster and Partners and Sir Anthony Caro

London's Millennium Bridge is the first pedestrian river crossing over the Thames in central London for more than a century.

It is a 325m steel bridge linking the City of London at St. Paul's Cathedral with the Tate Modern Gallery at Bankside. -- Arup's web site

The concept was to create a structure of minimum intervention; a 'ribbon of steel' across the river. -- galinsky.com

Tale from the Bridge, sound installation by Martyn Ware and David Bickerstaff

The Millennium Bridge crosses the Thames from the Tate Modern to St Paul's Cathedral.  During the Olympics it was the site of a sound installation, Tales from the Bridge, by Martyn Ware and David Bickerstaff: a one hour loop composed of music and a poetry narrative for two voices about the Thames by Mario Petrucci. Speakers were placed the length of the foot bridge creating a vast ambient sound environment: music spatialised in Ware's terms. Plus Daniel Hirschman's interactive component means that walkers themselves trigger other tracks so that the experience is never the same twice.  The poetry narrative is about the river, its role in London, its poets, its economic lifeline, its anecdotes, its history.  The music is Water Night, written by Eric Whitacre and performed by Whitacre's Virtual Choir.-- on site

Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Gateshead, UK, 2001, Wilkinson Eyre Architects

The bridge links Newcastle’s thriving north bank with the Gateshead Quays arts and cultural quarter. The bridge is essentially two graceful curves, one forming the deck and the other supporting it, spanning between two islands running parallel to the quaysides. These pivot around their common springing points to allow shipping to pass beneath, using an innovative rotational movement similar to that of a slowly opening eyelid. The parabolic curves of the deck extend the 105m crossing distance to around 120m, giving enough extra length to provide the required clearance above the water. Visually elegant when static and in motion, the bridge offers a great spectacle during its opening operation – both during the day and by night. -- from architect's web site.

The official web site for the bridge.

Source: Santiago Calatrava

Puente de la Mujer Bridge, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2001 designed by Santiago Calatrava

the Puente de la Mujer marks his first integration of a rotating span with an inclined, singe-pylon suspension system. Set between fixed segments, the 335-foot-long central span of the Buenos Aires bridge can turn 90 degrees to allow tall boat traffic to flow freely.  -- Architectural Record.

Read description from architect's web site.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Sundial Bridge, Redding, California, USA, 2004 designed by Santiago Calatrava

The tall pylon and cable stays allow the bridge to avoid the nearby salmon-spawning habitat there are no supports in the water while encouraging public appreciation for the river. -- Official web site of Sundial Bridge

More photos from bridgehunter.com

Source: mbm-vr.it

Pedestrian Bridge, Parco S. Giuliano, Mestre, Italy, 2006 designed by Antonio Di Mambro Via M.B.M SpA

140 m long, the walkway has two ramps north and south respectively of 112 / 73 m, which allow the crossing. The bridge that forms the backbone of the bridge is bound to two shoulders reinforced concrete at the ends, and is supported by peening stays anchored to a steel column placed exactly at the midpoint of the structure, made stable by suitable cross braces. -- M.B.M SpA

Source: archimagazine.com

Pedestrian bridge Simone de Beauvoir, Paris, France, 2006 designed by Feichtinger Architectes 

The new footbridge maintains the coherence of this unusually open Parisian space by reaching across the river in a single, continuous span, without intermediate supports.  The pedestrian bridge associates architecture and structure inseparably.  -- ArchiMagazine

Source: Dissing+Weitling

Pedestrian Bridge over Aagade, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2008 designed by Dissing+Weitling

The Green Path bicycle route traverses Copenhagen's Noerrebro (North Bridge) quarter, forging a link with its sister green belt in neighbouring Frederiksberg. The link between the two cycle and pedestrian routes traverses the busy Aagade throughfare in a graceful arc in both the horisontal and vertical planes, in harmony with the sinuous curves the Green Path carves through the city. -- architect's web site

Source: Santiago Calatrava

Quarto Ponte Sul Canal Grande, Venice, Italy, 2009 designed by Santiago Calatrava

"Bridges in Venice do more than join together different parts of the city," Santiago Calatrava stated. "They serve as landmarks, meeting places, points of definition within an urban fabric that is utterly unique. This is the responsibility I have tried to fulfill, knowing that the Quarto Ponte sul Canal Grande must be a sensitive, beautiful, and vital addition to Venice. I am delighted that now people will be using it as I have imagined for so long."  - e-Architect.

Read a description from architect's web site.

Source: wikipedia.org

Kurilpa Bridge, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 2009 designed by Cox Rayner Architects and Arup Engineers

a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over the Brisbane River is the world’s largest tensegrity bridge -- Wikipedia

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Source: e-architect.co.uk

Helix Bridge, Singapore, 2010 designed by Cox Rayner Architects

The Helix Bridge is one of the few, if any, bridges in the world to be named after its structure.

The team found that a double spiral structure would utilise up to five times less steel than a conventional box girder bridge, and equally became excited about the prospect of such a structure making an iconic statement about Singapore as a ‘green’, walking city. -- e-Architect

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