Pulteney Bridge
Crosses the River Avon
Bath, England
1773
Bridges lined with shops have always been rarities, but Robert Adam's creation in Bath has more than novelty value. His restrained composition of curves and rectangles was one of the visual delights of English Neo-classicism. The uncluttered lines of the river facades were designed to be effective at a distance, while the elevations to the road provided an interesting play of light and shadow for passers-by. Paradoxically, the success of the concept destroyed the architecture. Within twenty years of its building, commercial pressures on this prime shop site dictated an expansion upwards, with a butchery of those graceful elevations which fortunately Adam was not alive to witness. Then in the nineteenth century, individual leaseholders enlarged their shop windows or cantilevered out over the river as the fancy took them. Storms and road widening also took their toll. By I948 the buildings had 'become pathetic travesties of the original design.'" In that very year, Bath City Council removed a wooden structure from the back of one shop; the tide had turned. From then on the story has been one of gradual restoration.
Each year in June, the people of the comunidad campesina of Huinchiri, along with villagers from three other nearby communities, rebuild a suspension bridge across the canyon of the upper Río Apurimac. The bridge is a keshwa chaca made of ropes hand woven of qqoya grass, a type of Andean bunchgrass. A steel girder bridge crosses the canyon a short distance upstream from the keshwa chaca, so it is not necessary that this rope bridge be rebuilt for any present-day transportation purposes. And yet the Quechua people continue to build the bridge annually, as apparently they have done since Inka times. It is their custom, and by maintaining the bridge they honor their ancestors and Pachamama.
Perrine's Bridge
New York
1850
Perrine's Bridge is the second oldest bridge in the State of New York, after the Hyde Hall Bridge in East Springfield. Once located in the hamlet called Perrines Bridge between 1850 and 1861. It is located in the modern day town of Esopus-Rosendale, New York just a few hundred feet to the east of Interstate 87 crossing of the Wallkill River in Ulster County, New York. Originally built to aid in the movement of trade between the towns of Rifton and Rosendale, the bridge is about two hours northwest of New York city between mile markers 81 and 82 on the New York State Thruway (I-87).
Pontypridd, "ponty"
William Edwards
Wales
1756
"Ponty" as it's known to the locals, is famous for its old bridge, which was, when built, the longest single spanning bridge in the world. The bridge, built in 1750 by William Edwards (a self taught mason) was so long (45m / 140 feet span) that it took three attempts to get it right. The first, a wooden bridge was washed away by floods, the second, of stone, collapsed during construction because of its weight. The third design was also stone, but much lighter because it had 6 large holes in it... 3 on each side, of diameter 9, 6 and 3 feet. Edwards was paid 50 pounds to maintain it for seven years. In 1857, a three-arch bridge was built alongside to make it easier for traffic to cross the river (the old bridge was a bit too steep).