Good for Calgary: they’ve commissioned designs for two footbridges across the Bow River, and they want them to be spectacular. (Bit of a controversy on how that can be achieved though; Ald. Druh Farrell wants the commission to go to Santiago Calatrava without a competition.) But everyone agrees the bridges need to be iconic.
The Happy Pontist (yes, a blog just on bridges) weighs in on the Calgary proposal, and also references another controversy in the British city of Sunderland, where there was a competition for a bridge over the River Wear. Here’s the winner:
The Pontist was sceptical it could get built, given the cost of its spectacular engineering.
Which is also the reason that Portland went for a more conservative design for its latest bridge over the Willamette for its light-rail extension:
Price tag: $134 million. You can see the other proposal for The Wave here.
I love the work of Santiago Calatrava, but I agree that Calgary should hold a competition.
I disagree with the idea that “the brand name is at least as important as the product,” extremely few people can name the designers of iconic buildings and bridges, even the most famous of famous ones. Think about the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, Sydney Opera House, Space Needle in Seattle, etc… all iconic stuff that lots of people would recognize, and I’m sure 99% of people couldn’t tell you who designed them. Most people couldn’t tell you who designed the Eiffel Tower, even though the guy’s name is literally part of the name of the tower!
The only time the brand name is really as important as the product, is when the product is crap. Such as the Experience Music Project in Seattle designed by Frank Gehry.
I love designers, I love Calatrava, but it’s the final product that really matters.
Okay Gordon, I think you’ve posted over a dozen passerelles already. I think you’re hinting that you’d like one. How about playing with photoshop a little and showing us what you would like and a nice write up about how much it would cost and how many people would take it and stuff like that. Not that I’m getting tired of these posts but I just think one on Vancouver’s non-existent passerelle would be a better read. Cheers.