Bridges

Civil engineering's most dramatic form — log across a stream to mile-long cable-stayed mega-structures, with a spectacular collapse or two along the way.

15 posts· 2900 BCE – 1890

• The Forth Bridge: steel, cantilevers, and a lesson from the Tay 1890
• The Garabit Viaduct, or the bridge that proved the Tower 1884
• The Brooklyn Bridge, or how Washington Roebling directed the world's longest span from a sickroom 1883
• The Menai Suspension Bridge, or how Telford hung a road from iron chains 1826
• The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, or how Telford carried a canal 127 feet above the Dee 1805
• The Iron Bridge, or how a Shropshire gorge became the template for everything that followed 1779
• Kintai-kyō: the five wooden arches of Iwakuni 1673
• Pont Neuf: the bridge that gave Paris its river back 1607
• The Rialto Bridge, or how Venice bet on a single arch 1591
• Old London Bridge, the crossing that became a city 1209
• Anji Bridge: the flattest arch in the ancient world 605 CE
• Trajan's Bridge, or how to cross a river by moving it first 105 CE
• The Pont du Gard, or how Rome moved a river across a gorge 50 CE
• The Arkadiko bridge, or the oldest arch still standing 1300 BCE
• The bridge at Girsu, or the world's oldest crossing 2900 BCE