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Reviews
| Bridges. By Richard L. Cleary, with "A Call for Preservation" by Eric Delony. Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebook series, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007. 383 pp., approx. 950 illus. and diags., bibl., glossary, index, CD-ROM. $75 hb (ISBN-10: 0-393-73136-7/ISBN-13: 978-0-393-73136-1).
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Bridges by Richard L. Cleary is a typology of bridges in the United States that uses black and white photographs, illustrations, and drawings to show how bridge design changed over the years with the introduction of new engineering ideas and new materials. For someone interested in bridges, this is a fascinating book. Cataloged as a visual sourcebook, it makes use of the enormous Library of Congress collections as have previous works in the Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebook series on Dams, Barns, Public Markets, Canals, and Lighthouses. It is hardbound and includes a CD-ROM. Cleary is an associate professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas-Austin. His publications include scholarship on the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, so it is fitting that Cleary included the concrete girder bridge from Wright's Ravine Bluff Development in Glencoe, Illinois.
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The first section of the book is a 36-page introduction to bridge history. Cleary notes in this section that the bridge may be ordinary or spellbinding and that bridges are a solution to a problem, which is solved "more or less elegantly." While people typically have a fascination with things that are the biggest or longest, he writes, "the measure of a bridge's significance as a creative solution often is revealed most clearly in details, such as the connections of structural members" (p. 9). In keeping with this thesis, he includes not only the typical three-quarter angle view but also numerous photographs and drawings that reveal these details.
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Woven into the introductory text are images of bridge-erecting facilities, workers and worker housing, bridge disasters, bridge designers and engineers, and societal impact, along with unique and important bridges. Although brief, the introduction provides the reader with enough information to delve into the next five sections.
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Bridges surveys all types of bridges, including those intended for rail and auto traffic, pedestrians, and, in the case of the Verde River Sheep Bridge, hundreds of sheep. The Verde River structure is an engineer-designed but rancher-built suspension bridge constructed in Arizona in 1943, using locally sourced materials. A historic photograph shows the bridge packed with sheep making their way across the timber structure, coupled with a more modern HAER photograph showing the rancher and builder of the bridge, Frank Auza, in an environmental portrait. Other bridges included in the book are the stone crib Bailey Island Bridge in Maine, the Central Park bridges of Calvert Vaux, the Fort Point Channel rolling lift-bridge in Boston, and the Sitka Harbor Bridge in Alaska. Geographically, much of the country is represented, including Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
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The five main sections are organized by bridge type: beam, arch, truss, moveable (swing, lift, and bascule), and suspension and cable-stayed bridges. Each section begins with a short introduction to that specific bridge type, which may be a definition or an explanation of how this bridge stands up and supports a load. Then variations of that bridge type are examined more closely. Included in the beam bridge section, for example, are examples of wood, iron, and steel girder, plate girder, and concrete girder bridges. Each of these subsections typically has a sentence or two introducing this specific example. There may be up to six modern or historic photographs, illustrations, or drawings for each bridge type, showing a typical three-quarter angle view and a bridge detail or construction view among them.
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While the photographs are not awe inspiring in the way an Ansel Adams print might be, they are awe inspiring for the design and engineering elements they reveal. Many of the photographs take on the feel of a Becher photograph, where the bridge is the subject, and the personal style of the photographer is not evident. In fact, many photographs lack any deep shadow detail and show the bridge in a flatly lit situation, a trademark of the industrial photographs made by the German industrial photography duo. As one turns from page to page, no one page of images stands out from another because of inconsistencies in the printing process. The photos are reproduced in various sizes, but none are too small to be illegible. Up to four images may appear on one page in a layout with plenty of white space, allowing for comfortable viewing of the images and text. Some very nice Historic American Engineering Record drawings are also included. The text on the drawings is somewhat difficult to read as the reproduction size is small. However, one is still able to make sense of the information included on the drawing.
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Image captions include bridge type, bridge name, location (city, county, state), owner, designer, engineer, construction date, construction company, material supplier, photographer, date of photograph, delineator, collection name (abbreviated), and Library of Congress call number. The caption also notes the present condition of the bridge—whether dismantled, moved, rehabilitated, or demolished.
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Included with this and other visual sourcebooks is a CD-ROM that connects the user via the Internet to four online resources: The Print & Photographs Online Catalog, The American Memory site, The Library of Congress Online Catalog, and Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, 1933–Present. The majority of illustrations and photographs come from the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record.
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The CD-ROM contains high-quality, downloadable versions of all the illustrations printed in the book. The .TIF files of each image are stored in six folders, one for each [chapter] of the book. Image size ranges from 144 pixels per inch (ppi) for photographs, 200 ppi for illustrations, and 1200 ppi for line drawings. File sizes range from about 300k to 2.3 mega pixels, with physical size from 2 × 4 inches to 9 × 12 inches. The CD also includes the software application Portfolio, produced by the firm Extensis. This application serves as a search engine and handles image management. Version 7.0.6 is included on the disk, but as of this writing the current available version is 8.5. To use this application, the user needs to install the included software on a personal computer. To view only the .TIF images, no software installation is necessary.
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While the image captions in the book are quite nice, it is unfortunate that the CD-ROM digital image files lack this information, referred to as metadata. Thus, no caption information other than a brief Library of Congress reference will follow the digital file as it is copied or stored to a hard drive.
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| Finally there is a sobering note about bridge preservation from retired HAER Chief Eric Delony. In his three-page "Call for Preservation," Delony estimates that half the bridges shown in the book have been demolished. He cites recent statistics that suggest, "over half the historic bridges of the United Sates were destroyed in the last two decades of the twentieth century – two decades in which preservation awareness of structures of all types was at its most sophisticated level" (p. 35). More diligent future preservation efforts are necessary, he argues, as "future generations will judge us by how well we succeeded in saving examples of our historic built environment, including historic bridges, as we enter the twenty-first century" (p. 37). |
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