Bridges
 Judith Dupré
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 1997 Black Dog & Levanthal Pub.
  ISBN: 1884822754

Born of practical needs, to get from one side to the other, bridges represent a unique union between abstract technology & expressive art. From the simple masonry bridges of the Romans which spanned rivers & brought water to their cities to astonishingly preserved Chinese bridges to modernday structures of steel soaring to the horizon.

Early European bridges were constructed by religious orders & funded by the faithful. Then came crowded inhabited bridges over crowded waterways in ever-more populated cities. While the covered bridge was popular everywhere, in burgeoning young America, they were vital conduits during long winters.

This is one wide, wide book - clear a large space on your table because you are going to need it! The black & white photographs are spectacular! Judith Dupré gives us a fine lesson in Bridge Basics.

I remember brightly the first day I drove over all three of the mighty San Francisco Bay bridges, soaring above sparkling water, seeming to head straight into the sky & then down to wonderland.

With an interview with Frank O. Gehry, the most original & influential modern bridge designer, Judith Dupré invites us to meet with the impish & innovative minds of today's designers who travel the world just to see a bridge someone built centuries ago from one little village to another; someone who knew what it took to get it done with the tools of their time.

Judith Dupré takes us into a world of remarkable beauty, from the earliest to the latest of these engineering wonders.

I live on the edge of a rainforest in the lowlands where rain & snowmelt run off the mountains to the sea & we are surrounded by bridges. In the beginning they were merely fords where people drove their wagons over shallow summer waters or vast hewn slabs of spruce or cedar toppled from one bank to the other. Winter presented an entirely different adventure so in the 1930s, the logging industry put the engineer corps to work erecting a mess of metal trestle bridges, many still stand today although they are fast being replaced by slabbed concrete - uninspiring until you see them from below.

There is something marvelously magical about bridges & this book is a labor of love, complete with photos of thousand year old spans, super modern structures & unusual architectural drawings. Lots of fascinating details.

From France, China, Bosnia & Herzegovina to Arizona, Missouri & Vermont; from Wales, England & Scotland - the Forth Bridge took my breath away when I saw it as a youngster - to Australia, Venezuela & Japan. From Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark & Switzerland to New York, Oregon & San Francisco, Judith Dupré takes us on an informational tour of the bridges of the world.

There are Bridges in the Movies, the 100 Longest Bridges, a thorough Glossary & an excellent Bibliography.

A must for anyone who has ever wondered about bridges: their history, how they came to be & who designed them.

Also from Judith Dupré: Skycrapers - her books explore the interaction of text and image on the printed page.
(07/23/00)

Rebecca