Tuesday, August 18, 2009
FUTURE OF COVERED BRIDGES...
In many lands all over the planet, covered bridges are being engineered and constructed to suit the needs of the population... as always. Once mostly made of wood, now they are often made in a variety of material – steel, glass, composite and still, often wood.
Singapore is my latest addition to the Asian covered bridges and shows new structures that will push the technology and the image of covered bridges worldwide. We must keep in mind the purpose and the needs for these new covered walkways... as one narrow-minded person once try to impress on me that only vehicular wooden covered bridges really mattered, I was quick at pointing that all covered bridges built before 1900 where mostly built for foot traffic... be it human or animal! Covered bridges were built with the latest possible technological advances of the times... not as future antiquities!
Our cities have many example of the evolution of the covered bridge. From Venice Italy to Dresden in Saxony to Toronto, Singapore, Kuala-Lumpur and Hong-Kong, one can admire amazing footbridges between shopping-malls, palaces, cathedrals and office towers.
We must never stopped being amazed. New vistas, new structures...
The world is now a smaller place for we can cover it faster than ever. Through the centuries, we have built ourselves outstanding structures, using these as a pretext to discover the planet sound like a plan.
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