Elegant Spans: Suspension Bridges
Overview
The suspension bridge using iron and/or steel as its structural material was a new form of spanning space developed in the nineteenth century. Used for pedestrian, vehicular, canal, and railroad traffic, this new bridge form celebrated the versatility and strength of iron and steel as structural elements. The resultant monumental technology created elegant and efficient bridges which captured the imagination of the public as well as the artistic community.
Background
Spanning space by suspending or hanging a bridge surface from towers dates to ancient times when people in Tibet and Peru used the design as foot bridges in the Himalayas and Andes. However, the modern form of the metal suspension bridge is a product of nineteenth-century designers in the United States, France, and Britain as a response to the increased transportation needs of industrialism.
The American James Finley, from Union-town, Pennsylvania, patented his design of the first modern suspension bridge in 1808. Incorporating metal cables or chains into his bridges, Finley used an empirical method of design to construct spans as long as 250 feet (76 m) and influenced other bridge builders in the first few decades of the nineteenth century.
In the early 1800s Finley's design diffused to Europe where Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and Samuel Brown in Britain and Claude-Louis-Marie-Henri Navier in France built on Finley's original work to create longer and stronger suspension bridges.
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