6. ​​A human–centred framework for bridge aesthetics

​One ​reason for writing this essay is that, over several decades, I have not encountered a framework for bridge aesthetics with which I could fully identify. Many distinguished bridge engineers and architects have formulated important ideas, but I have not yet found an interpretation that brings them together into a coherent whole. This may, of course, reflect limitations in my own knowledge; nevertheless, I must presently proceed on the assumption that no such synthesis exists. If nothing else, this essay will serve one useful purpose: to organise my own thinking into a clear structure in a field where I have long felt such a structure was missing.

Analysing ​existing bridges can teach us a great deal about how ‘good’ bridges come into being. I believe, however, that more effective design tools become possible if the framework of bridge aesthetics is structured differently.

To ​formulate the ambition more precisely, I propose a new interdisciplinary framework that treats bridge design not merely as an engineering task, but as a synthesis of physical reality and psychological space — of perception and lived experience. The following sections attempt to transform and extend the established framework in that direction.

6.1 ​​Critique of the established framework

​I have ​already referred to the framework associated with Vitruvius and Leonhardt. Vitruvius’s architectural philosophy was organised around three concepts, producing a system that is both readily intelligible and broadly applicable. When the surviving texts were rediscovered in the fifteenth century, additional passages became available that allowed for a much richer interpretation; the master builders of the Renaissance effectively acquired a theoretical and practical design manual. Without that rediscovery, Renaissance architecture might well have remained closer to the direct imitation of ancient forms. Alberti, Brunelleschi and, later, Palladio were seeking a new architectural order, and Vitruvius therefore reappeared at precisely the right historical moment, providing principles that helped establish the intellectual foundations of later classical architecture.

The ​Vitruvian triad is fundamentally an objective, normative, classificatory and diagnostic framework. It enables us to interpret and evaluate buildings retrospectively, but it provides relatively little direct assistance in creating them. The human viewpoint is present implicitly, yet context, for example, remains subordinate. Nor is the triad sufficiently fine-grained to distinguish reliably between a spectacular bridge and a genuinely ‘good’ bridge. A structure might satisfy all three Vitruvian principles to a very high degree and still fail if it establishes no meaningful relationship with people or with lived human experience.

The very simplicity of the Vitruvian system makes it particularly suitable for clear visual comparisons. One can readily construct illustrative triptychs using cars, bridges, buildings or even historical periods in order to demonstrate what happens when one component of the triad becomes dominant.

​​Among cars, for example, Venustas might be represented by the Jaguar E-Type — famously admired by Enzo Ferrari — the Ferrari 250 GTO or, more personally, the BMW Z4 E89. If Firmitas alone were decisive, a safe Volvo XC90 might be the obvious choice; if Utilitas dominated, perhaps a practical Toyota Corolla. The same exercise can be performed with buildings: the Sydney Opera House or Guggenheim Bilbao for Venustas; the Pantheon in Rome or perhaps a monumental brutalist structure for Firmitas; and an aircraft hangar or industrial hall for Utilitas. Among bridges, Calatrava’s Puente de la Mujer ​in Buenos Aires could stand for the dominance of Venustas, the Pont du Gard ​for Firmitas, and an urban flyover or routine motorway bridge for Utilitas. Joris Smits uses a comparable form of illustrative comparison in The Art of Bridge Design, ​although there it is applied to successive periods in the history of bridge design.

Leonhardt’s ​approach is based principally on his ten aesthetic criteria together with an unusually strict ethical position. Those ten criteria form a complex synthesis that is worth disentangling. Elements of the Vitruvian triad and of the six compositional principles are present implicitly, while several criteria explicitly draw upon Gestalt principles. Integration with the environment is given a prominent role, as are a number of qualities already connected with subjective experience. Detailing, too, becomes a central concern rather than a secondary refinement.

​In ​the late 2000s, students on a bridge-design course at the University of Bath were asked to write bridge critiques using ​Leonhardt’s criteria. It is undeniably difficult to provide students with a workable framework for criticism, yet such direct application reminds me of the poetry-analysis scene in Dead Poets Society, in which Dr J. Evans Pritchard’s textbook instructs pupils to assess a poem and then plot its artistic merit and importance on a graph. Leonhardt’s ideas are far too valuable to be reduced to a similarly mechanical checklist.

Leonhardt’s ​Germanic thoroughness is remarkable. His approach implicitly encompasses almost everything that appears necessary, yet the explicit dimension of lived experience is missing. Emotionally sterile bridges will never be ‘good’ bridges, however rational, minimalist and structurally honest they may be. Leonhardt’s system of engineering ethics and aesthetics can appear rigid and overly dogmatic, but it nevertheless forms a coherent whole. Compared with the Vitruvian triad, it is considerably more useful during the design process when aesthetic questions must be addressed. The Bath example, however, shows how easily even a sophisticated framework can be reduced to a merely diagnostic checklist.

6.2 ​Paradigm shifts

​Both ​of the approaches discussed above consist largely of principles that appear almost self-evident once stated, yet they are surprisingly difficult to use generatively during design. For me, design has always begun with an act of imaginative identification: I try to place myself in the position of the user and ask what that person would wish to see and how the place might feel. When a bridge incorporates additional functions, the range of users and experiences expands accordingly. Motorists, cyclists and pedestrians have different needs, perceptions and modes of movement. A bridge is also encountered from many viewpoints: from a boat passing beneath it, from the riverbank, from the roadway, from a footway, or from one of the spaces created on the bridge itself. Speed and bodily engagement differ in each case. A complex bridge can therefore generate a remarkable range of impressions and sensations, all of which can inform its structural and architectural development — provided that the designer is also capable of reading context. Understanding the site and the manner in which a bridge can belong to a landscape or urban fabric is at least as important as understanding the different levels of human experience. A genuinely ‘good’ bridge can emerge only when these considerations are reconciled with all the other functional, structural, technical and economic requirements.

There ​are several bridge engineers and architects whose attitudes and design methods encourage me to believe that these ideas are far from unrealistic. A few names may help clarify the direction. Joris Smits, like me, combines teaching and practice: he teaches bridge design at Delft University of Technology while also working as a designer. I encountered many related ideas in his book mentioned earlier, and it was particularly rewarding to read his reflections on bridges I had already visited during an earlier tour of the Netherlands. Hector Beade-Pereda is another kindred spirit whose bridges and writings I have followed for years. He has repeatedly articulated a philosophy of ‘Holistic Design’ and has likewise argued for the deliberate incorporation of human experience into bridge design. Laurent Ney reads context with exceptional sensitivity, while his philosophy of ‘Integral Design’ has generated a highly recognisable architectural language; the extraordinary slenderness of his bridges remains difficult not to admire. Martin Knight is another prominent advocate of human-centred design, expressed through what he calls ‘Design that Connects’. Jörg Conzett is a master of structural elegance, known for refined detailing and an exceptional ability to embed bridges within landscape. Xavier Font’s talent and sense of form are equally remarkable, particularly in the distinctive details that give his bridges their individual character.

History ​is full of paradigm shifts, large and small, that alter the framework through which we interpret the world. In the cultural history of physics, such shifts have been profound; in architecture, changes in technology and in architectural periods can perhaps be understood in comparable terms, although less rigorously. In physics, a new paradigm does not necessarily invalidate the previous one; rather, it subsumes it and defines the limits within which it remains valid. Einstein did not abolish Newtonian physics. He revealed its domain of applicability. Gravity was no longer understood simply as an invisible force acting at a distance, but as the curvature of spacetime. Space was no longer absolute and static, nor time uniformly flowing; both became relative to the observer’s state of motion. Einstein unified three-dimensional space and time into a four-dimensional spacetime continuum. Yet bridge engineers continue to use Newtonian mechanics every day because, at the gravitational fields and velocities relevant to ordinary structures, it remains entirely adequate. Human perception itself still experiences space and time largely as separate dimensions, much as they appear in the Newtonian world.

Comparable paradigm shifts can also be identified in psychology. Structuralism treated consciousness as something assembled from elementary components. In the twentieth century, Gestalt psychology challenged that model with the well-known proposition that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. Evolution has equipped the human brain to impose order rapidly upon apparent visual chaos. Gestalt perception is not limited to vision, although vision provides the clearest examples. Incoming stimuli are organised by the brain into coherent forms — Gestalten — according to recurring regularities usually described as Gestalt principles. ​Six principles are most commonly cited, although many more have been identified; the figure-ground relationship is perhaps the best known, classically illustrated by Rubin’s vase. Gestalt perception is fundamentally an objective perceptual process shared by human beings — and, to some extent, by other animals — regardless of cultural background.

​Gestalt ​perception, of course, did not begin with twentieth-century psychology. The perceptual phenomena themselves have always been part of human experience. Several of Vitruvius’s compositional principles already describe relationships that we would now recognise in Gestalt terms: proportion, symmetry, rhythm and harmony. Painters have exploited such principles instinctively for as long as painting has existed, and medieval and Renaissance artists developed them to extraordinary sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper (1498) and Masaccio’s The Tribute Money (c. 1420), for example, guide not only the viewer’s attention but even the sequence through which a narrative is visually read. Impressionists used such principles largely intuitively; Pointillists approached aspects of perception with almost scientific deliberation. Photographers likewise employ them both consciously and instinctively. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare (1932) is an exemplary case. Earlier generations would probably have referred simply to principles of composition, whereas Leonhardt was already able to draw explicitly on Rudolf Arnheim, professor of the psychology of art, who extended Gestalt theory into the interpretation of visual art. Architects — and visually sensitive bridge engineers — continue to use these principles as a kind of ‘secret weapon’.

The ​leading figures of modernist architecture, Le Corbusier foremost among them, were strongly oriented towards visual form. Alongside appearance, they emphasised abstraction, functional efficiency and visual purity. Industrial expression, repeatability and the pursuit of universality broke deliberately with local traditions. The International Style projected an architecture that, in principle, could be reproduced almost anywhere in the world.

​As a reaction to the cold and technocratic tendencies of modernism, phenomenological architecture emerged as an alternative line of thought. Phenomenology is closer to philosophy than to an objective science and therefore necessarily contains subjective elements, but this does not diminish its relevance. Peter Zumthor, Juhani Pallasmaa and Christian Norberg-Schulz are among its most influential representatives. Their work argues for an architecture centred on the human subject and on sensory experience. Vision is only one component; hearing, touch, smell and thermal perception must also participate in the experience of space. For Zumthor, the acoustics of a building, the tactility of its surfaces, its scent and its temperature may be as important as its visual appearance. His book Atmospheres has become a foundational text in this field. Through nine principal and three supplementary themes, Zumthor describes qualities capable of eliciting immediate physical and emotional responses and thereby producing atmosphere. Attachment to place is also central. Norberg-Schulz, among others, reinterpreted the ancient concept of genius loci: no longer merely the protective ‘spirit’ of a place, but the deeper character, meaning and atmosphere through which a place becomes identifiable.

It ​is useful to compare Gestalt perception with phenomenology directly. Gestalt theory examines the principles by which the brain organises sensory stimuli — most commonly visual and auditory — into coherent forms. Phenomenology concerns the feelings, memories and experiences that arise in consciousness in relation to those already organised forms. Gestalt perception helps explain classical principles of composition; phenomenology addresses atmosphere and emotional effect. Applied to a bridge, Gestalt theory can help us understand its form, proportions, rhythms and visual relationships, whereas phenomenology asks a different question: what does it feel like to be on the bridge? Gestalt principles are comparatively ‘static’, because the laws of visual organisation remain present whether the bridge is seen from a distance, in a photograph or on a drawing. Phenomenological experience, by contrast, unfolds through time and movement. An urban bridge with additional functions may invite walking, pausing, looking and resting. Sunlight or a light breeze may be felt on the skin; the smell of the river, the warmth of timber on a bench, the sound of footsteps or traffic may all generate immediate sensations and, in some cases, memories.

The ​interior of a Gothic church provides an even clearer illustration. Gothic architecture deliberately extends space vertically. Slender stone piers and pointed arches force the gaze upwards; the field of vision cannot encompass the whole interior, which begins to feel almost infinite, while a sense of human smallness enters consciousness. Coloured light filtering through rose windows produces an otherworldly atmosphere within an otherwise dark interior and encourages reverence. In the silence of the vast nave, tiny sounds become amplified — even one’s own breathing may seem unusually loud. Silence separates the interior from the outside world and encourages introspection. Rough stone surfaces suggest austere permanence; the air remains cool even in summer; candles and the faint smell of damp stone can trigger immediate memories. In bodily perception, our own body normally provides the scale of reference. In a Gothic interior, however, ordinary human proportions are deliberately overwhelmed. Every sense communicates that something immeasurably larger than the individual occupies the centre of attention. Here illusion operates not merely through visual composition but through the totality of embodied experience.

For ​many years I experimented with photography in an attempt to understand how human scale and architectural space might be represented convincingly together. Gestalt-based principles — from shadows that articulate geometric forms to precisely composed visual relationships — can contribute powerfully to illusion. Yet a two-dimensional photograph still acts primarily through a single sense. One can certainly argue that texture can produce a kind of visual anticipation of touch, but the essential point remains: stimulation of one sense cannot always compete with multisensory experience.

The ​scale of bridges can be comparable to that of cathedrals, although fortunately their horizontal dimension usually dominates over the vertical. The experience generated by an urban bridge with additional functions can nevertheless be profound, and designers should take advantage of that potential. Architecture has one important advantage: it can concentrate on enclosed interiors, where sensory experience can be orchestrated with much greater control. Because bridges are predominantly open spaces, the experiences they can evoke are more readily compared with those of landscape architecture. A bridge, however, possesses an advantage over a park: it usually occupies an exceptional position from which a unique perspective over water, city or landscape becomes available.

Modernism’s inhuman and technocratic tendencies generated not only the phenomenological response described above but also another, very different line of thought associated with Christopher Alexander. His early major work A Pattern Language is based on an analogy between building and language. Alexander drew a parallel between speaking and making places. Medieval towns, he observed, could be harmonious and liveable even though they had not been designed by a single author; they had developed organically over centuries. A liveable environment, in his interpretation, is not the product of random decisions but of deeply rooted, recurring structural patterns. If a community can share a spoken language — knowing its words, grammar and ways of forming sentences — then a comparable body of shared knowledge can also exist in building. Just as the craft of cathedral construction was passed from master to master, successful solutions survived while unsuccessful ones disappeared. Good solutions became patterns through a kind of cultural evolution. Alexander argued that this common body of knowledge had largely been lost by the twentieth century. In A Pattern Language he collected 253 patterns intended to help revive it and thereby make it possible once again to create ‘living’ environments. He went further, suggesting the existence of an objective and universal geometrical language through which structures, environments and even the world could be made more ‘alive’. Twenty-five years later, in The Nature of Order, he no longer regarded pattern language as sufficient in itself. He developed the concepts of ‘Living Structure’ and ‘Wholeness’ and identified fifteen geometric properties that, in his view, contribute to living structure. The more fully these properties are embodied, the closer the work approaches wholeness. As a mathematician, Alexander initially tried to remain within the territory of set theory and graph theory; later, however, fractal ideas were joined by an increasingly spiritual dimension in his architectural theory.

Zumthor and Alexander are difficult to compare directly, yet both are searching for a synthesis centred on space and human experience. Their objective is comparable, while their methods and emphasis differ profoundly. Zumthor approaches the problem through subjective sensory and phenomenological experience; Alexander through recurring geometrical relationships treated as if they possessed an objective basis. Alexander’s claim to a ‘cosmic order’ and to a degree of objectivity may be difficult to accept literally, but his human-centred pattern language, understood as a generative design aid, deserves much more serious attention. I shall return to it later.

T​he most recent paradigm shift may be emerging through the cognitive sciences. Cognitive neuroscience increasingly incorporates phenomena previously studied through Gestalt psychology and phenomenology and seeks to place them on a biological foundation. As Einstein’s paradigm did not abolish Newtonian physics, cognitive science need not invalidate Gestalt theory or phenomenology; rather, it may define more precisely the levels at which each remains meaningful.

Even if cognitive science eventually explains the biological processes underlying perception and experience, such knowledge alone will not tell us how to design a ‘good’ bridge. For that, we still require a design methodology capable of operating within this expanded framework.

6.3 ​The relationship between context and human experience

​Put ​simply, context may be understood as an umbrella term for the totality of physical (spatial) and intellectual or semantic (temporal) factors that influence bridge design. One of the particular beauties of bridge design lies precisely in this context-oriented character: in the capacity of a bridge to respond to every relevant circumstance — to each of its fundamental contexts.

Context ​is a fabric, a network composed of multiple layers. Some lie at the surface, others at greater depth, and the layers are interconnected. Of the many possible contexts, I would single out three fundamental ones. One surface layer concerns the bridge’s immediate physical surroundings and therefore requires an understanding of topography, bodies of water, the local urban fabric, locally characteristic building materials, climatic conditions, orientation and so forth. Historical context — temporal continuity — and cultural context — social embeddedness — belong to the deeper layers. These are what invest the more immediately perceptible physical context with meaning and identity.

If a bridge ​responds successfully to its environmental, historical and cultural contexts, it can preserve — or even intensify — the genius loci discussed earlier. Genius loci cannot be measured; it can only be experienced. This is precisely why phenomenology is relevant: it helps make the distinctive character of a place perceptible through human experience.

In ​the great majority of cases, however — even when the bridge designer is sensitive to context — the genius loci is neither expressed nor reinforced. In bringing a bridge into physical existence, designers generally succeed in responding to the contexts of site, form, structural behaviour, constructability, function, economy and efficiency, among others; unfortunately, that alone is not enough. If a bridge responds appropriately to all the relevant contexts and also succeeds in giving perceptible expression to the genius loci, then a ‘good’ bridge can emerge. Space — the mere site — is transformed into place, while time becomes experience. Psychology might describe this by saying that meanings, emotions and memories transform measurable time (Chronos) into a lived moment (Kairos). I realise that most engineers are too pragmatic to accept such a statement without reservation, but perhaps the examples in Section 6.6 will make the idea more tangible.

6.4 ​Context–oriented bridge categories

​For the sake of clarity, I propose a new approach and a new classification system — not as a replacement for conventional bridge-engineering categories, but purely as a means of thematic organisation. Traditional classifications are based either on structural system (beam bridge, arch bridge, suspension bridge, etc.) or on function in terms of the traffic carried (pedestrian, road, railway, etc.). These categories naturally remain entirely valid. Alongside them, however, I believe that bridge classification should also acknowledge contextual orientation and a human-centred approach — that is, human perception and lived experience. An additional advantage is that such categories are more readily intelligible to non-specialists.

I ​have repeatedly found, particularly in discussions with students about bridges whose outward form appears to contradict their actual structural behaviour, that they are uncertain what to call the bridge. The concepts of an arch bridge or a suspension bridge are relatively familiar, but the Szabadság Bridge (1896)​, for example, is deceptive: its silhouette evokes a suspension bridge — partly through the contextual logic of its integration into the cityscape — whereas structurally it is in fact a Gerber-hinged truss-girder bridge. The categories proposed below are therefore described briefly and accompanied by examples. They are not mutually exclusive: some bridges may legitimately belong to more than one category.

6.4.1 ​Masterpiece bridges

​D​escription: Relatively short structures, often jewel-box-like in character, in which every joint, connection and fixing is the result of bespoke design. Materials are refined and carefully selected, while fabrication and workmanship represent the highest level of contemporary craftsmanship.

Context: ​Typically found within a dense, historic or otherwise sensitive urban fabric, where the bridge is inserted almost as an artefact in its own right. It does not seek to dominate its surroundings; rather, through subtle proportional relationships between the existing built heritage and the new structure, it aims to enhance them. Such bridges often occur where pedestrian use and close visual proximity demand an almost artisanal precision.

Human experience: ​The dominant impression is one of ‘tangible quality’. Visitors instinctively run a hand along the parapet or stop to examine the joints and connections. The natural tactile qualities of materials — timber, stainless steel, stone — and the evident craftedness of the details create a sense of trust and intimacy. Light and shadow playing across precisely resolved components heighten the sense of presence, while the sound of footsteps communicates the solidity and material reality of the structure.

Examples: Rolling Bridge (London, UK), Bridge of Aspiration (London, UK), Sackler Crossing (London, UK), Puente Callús (Callús, Spain), Bruggen Singerpark (Leiden, Netherlands), Dorfbrücke (Vals, Switzerland), Ponte Querini Stampalia (Venice, Italy), Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum (Tarogawa, Japan) 

6.4.2 ​Public - space bridges

​Description: ​‘Elevated public spaces’ that encourage people to linger through the provision of street furniture, planting and generous pedestrian areas. Their function is deliberately dual: besides enabling passage, they provide places for recreation, rest and social interaction.

Context: ​Urban transport corridors that the bridge elevates into genuine public space. Here the environment becomes inhabitable through the bridge, while the structure operates as a horizontal extension of the urban fabric — an ‘elevated space’. The bridge does more than connect two points: it creates a new, occupiable topography within the city, a place in which people can remain rather than merely pass through.

Human experience: ​The defining experiences are bodily freedom and the possibility of pausing. The senses are engaged by changing surface textures — timber, concrete, vegetation — and by variations in microclimate. The scent of planting, sheltered pockets protected from the wind and the ergonomics of seating create a sense of comfort and familiarity that overrides the conventional bridge experience of pure transit. The acoustic environment may also become softer: planting and spatial elements filter urban noise and create conditions more conducive to conversation or contemplation.

Examples: Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor (Paris, France), Passerelle Simone-de-Beauvoir (Paris, France), Paleisbrug ('s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands), High Line Park (New York, USA), Footbridge ‘Promenadendeck’ Erfurt (Erfurt, Germany), Karowa Bridge (Warsaw, Poland), Zwolle fietsbrug (Zwolle, Netherlands)

6.4.3 ​Minimalist bridges

​Description: ​Structures reduced to their essentials and characterised by clear, disciplined engineering responses. Ornament is avoided; their expressive power derives from the unembellished presence of the material and from structural necessity itself.

Context: ​Often a dramatic, largely untouched natural landscape or a severe, abstract engineering setting in which the bridge spans between the two sides as little more than a ‘thin line’. The contextual relationship is one of dialogue between absence and pure structure: the bridge does not seek to become more than its function requires, allowing the surrounding rock, water or landscape to remain visually dominant.

Human experience: ​An experience of reduction to essentials and of silence. The immediate presence and coolness of raw materials — concrete and steel — become dominant sensory qualities. On the slender structure, users become conscious of their own weight and of the height beneath them, producing an alert, almost meditative state. With little visual noise to distract attention, perception shifts towards the sound of the walking surface underfoot and towards the natural sounds of the surroundings — wind and water.

Examples: Schanerloch Brücke (Dornbirn, Austria), Wasserweg Flims (Flims, Switzerland), Punt da Suransuns (Thusis, Switzerland), Štvanice Footbridge / HolKa (Prague, Czech Republic)

6.4.4 ​Landmark bridges

​Description: ​A bridge that functions simultaneously as a landmark and as a major element of the landscape, often becoming visually dominant within it. Such dominance need not constitute a visual burden: in many cases, the bridge can still be successfully integrated into the landscape. Scale is the defining characteristic of this category. These bridges are not primarily tourist destinations; typically, they fulfil a specific transport function — road or rail — at some distance from major urban centres.

Context: ​The landscape as a whole constitutes the context. The bridge is related not to a single point but to the horizon, effectively redrawing the visual map of a valley or a major river. Seen from a distance, it can be read as a graphic sign, almost as a sculpture, whose structural logic and immense dimensions establish a commanding presence within the natural terrain or industrial landscape.

Human experience: ​The dominant experience is that of the ‘sublime’: confronted with the immense scale of the structure, the human body is reduced to a mere point of reference among pylons and cables. Verticality and vast spatial dimensions can produce an experience that is at once vertiginous and uplifting, altering the perception of distance. Sensory engagement here depends less on touch than on experiencing the visual tension between monumental structural forms and the surrounding landscape.

Examples: Sundial Bridge (Redding, USA), Viaduc de Millau (Millau, France), Chords Bridge (Jerusalem, Israel), Puente del Alamillo (Seville, Spain), Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge (Brasília, Brazil)

6.4.5 ​Iconic bridges

​Description: ​Every iconic bridge is also a landmark, but not every landmark attains iconic status. An iconic bridge represents an exceptional synthesis of technological and aesthetic achievement, capable of embodying the identity of an entire community. In many cases, a city — or even a country — comes to be identified with the bridge. Such bridges are generally situated in urban environments.

Context: ​Representative urban settings in which the bridge becomes a focal point of collective identity and, in effect, the ‘face’ of the city. The relevant context is both cultural and historical: the structure must be capable of condensing the technological and aesthetic self-image of an era or a people into a single recognisable form. Iconic bridges are often situated at the termination or intersection of major urban axes.

Human experience: ​The characteristic experience is one of ‘solemnity’ and ritual passage. The weight and material presence of massive construction — carved stone or riveted steel, for example — convey security and permanence. During the crossing, the user may experience the significance of passing through a ‘gateway to the city’, while the play of light and the rhythm of the structure create an elevated atmosphere. The experience is collective as well as individual: through sight and touch, the user senses participation in the history and identity of the city.

E​xamples: Erasmusbrug (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Samuel Beckett Bridge (Dublin, Ireland), Tintagel Footbridge (Tintagel, UK),

Firth of Forth Bridge (Edinburgh, UK), Tower Bridge (London, UK), Brooklyn Bridge (New York, USA), Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco, USA), Charles Bridge (Prague, Czech Republic)

Szabadság ​(Liberty) Bridge (Budapest, Hungary), Széchenyi Chain Bridge (Budapest, Hungary)

6.4.6 ​Form - innovating bridges

​Description: ​Bridges that break with established traditions in structural form or structural configuration and introduce a genuinely new solution. The geometry of the load-bearing system may depart from the form that would be most direct or efficient from the standpoint of structural behaviour.

Context: ​Settings in which conventional engineering forms no longer provide an adequate response to the complexity of the site, or in which technological provocation itself becomes part of the design intention. The bridge departs from familiar structural conventions; its context may therefore be the ‘city of the future’, or a landscape in which the contrast between an artificial form and natural forces becomes central to the composition.

Human experience: ​An experience of ‘intellectual and/or equilibrium-related excitement’. Because the structural form appears to contradict an instinctive sense of stability, the body becomes more alert. This visual tension disrupts the passer-by’s habitual mode of movement and encourages more conscious awareness of moving through an unfamiliar spatial condition. Novel materials and forms invite the senses into a continuing process of discovery.

​Examples: Viadotto dell’Industria (Potenza, Italy), Park Union Bridge (Colorado Springs, USA), Puente del Alamillo (Seville, Spain), Britannia Bridge (Anglesey, UK)

Szabadság (Liberty) Bridge (Budapest, Hungary), owing to the concave form of its suspended central span) 

6.4.7 ​Complementary bridges

​Description: ​Typically conceived as an ‘addition’ to an existing bridge in a historic or heritage setting, enabling the older structure to meet contemporary requirements once again — for example through the provision of a new pedestrian deck or walkway. Old and new complement one another in close harmony, interlocking almost in a yin–yang relationship.

Context: ​A heritage environment in which the bridge emerges from a dialogue between an older and a contemporary layer. Temporality is therefore central to the context: the intervention must respect the past while providing a present-day response, allowing old stonework and new steel members, for example, to form a coherent whole.

Human experience: ​A physical experience of the ‘layers of time’. The visitor can feel on the skin the contrast between old stone warmed by the sun and the cool surface of a contemporary metal parapet. Changes in the sound beneath one’s feet — the muted resonance of stone followed by the clearer ring of metal — make the historical transition both audible and tangible. The resulting atmosphere is nostalgic yet reassuring, grounded in carefully judged transitions between ‘old’ and ‘new’.

Examples: Passerelle Albi (Albi, France), Pont Trencat (Sant Celoni, Spain)

6.4.8 ​Spectacle - driven bridges

​Description: ​Eccentric and often deliberately spectacular structures in which architectural vision takes precedence over structural restraint. Their primary ambition is immediate visual impact.

Context: ​Such bridges are commonly associated with tourist destinations, entertainment districts or locations where the bridge is intended to function as an attraction in its own right — a visual exclamation mark. Their relationship with context may be based upon deliberate contrast rather than integration.

Human experience: ​The dominant experience is one of sensory overload and immediate spectacle. Intense colour, complex curvature and dynamic lighting produce rapid emotional impact. The experience is generally more visual and event-like than contemplative or tactile. The physical reality of the structure may become secondary to the dominance of image and form.

Examples: The Twist (Jevnaker, Norway), Helix Bridge (Singapore), Dragon Bridge (Da Nang, Vietnam), Lucky Knot (Changsha, Hunan, China), Ruyi Bridge (Xianju, China)

6.4.9 ​Mimetic bridges

​Description: ​In this category, formal transformation or imitation becomes the defining characteristic. Two principal forms may be distinguished. In the first, the bridge physically transforms from one configuration into another, as in movable bridges. In the second, the visible structure imitates a structural form that differs from the geometry implied by its actual load-bearing behaviour.

Context: ​Such bridges often have playful, technological or metaphorical significance. The surrounding environment becomes something of a stage upon which the bridge performs — not merely as a static crossing, but as an element capable of changing form or meaning.

Human experience: ​The characteristic experience is one of transformation and wonder. A normally static object appears to come alive through opening, rolling or rotation. Moving components, hydraulic sounds and changing geometry disrupt ordinary spatial perception and evoke curiosity. The user becomes not merely someone crossing a bridge, but a participant in an engineering performance.

Examples: Rolling Bridge (London, UK), Gateshead Millennium Bridge (Gateshead, UK), Cirkelbroen (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Tintagel Footbridge (Tintagel, UK), Szabadság (Liberty) Bridge (Budapest, Hungary) 

6.5 ​The human–centred approach

​In ​my experience, people have a fundamental affection for bridges. There may be many deeply rooted emotional and intellectual reasons for this, supplemented by a wealth of symbolic meanings — crossing, connection, a sense of freedom. The subject has been explored extensively and has generated a substantial literature.

For ​me, what matters most is the unique perspective revealed from the middle of a bridge, the possibility of lingering there, and the structural elegance of the bridge itself. Since one must first reach the middle, it is by no means irrelevant whether the journey takes place along a narrow pavement or along a genuine pedestrian ‘promenade’. Street furniture and any other elements capable of transforming the route into a promenade-like environment encourage people to pause. The material of the handrail, the timber surface of a bench and the paving beneath one’s feet all matter to sensory experience. Naturally, the requirements placed on a motorway bridge far from a city are entirely different from those of a public-space bridge spanning a river, organically integrated into the urban fabric and endowed with additional functions. Yet if we are capable of designing the latter to an exemplary standard, a motorway bridge should present no insurmountable difficulty. The reverse is emphatically not true. My rather bitter experience is that professional socialisation through motorway-bridge design, followed by the ‘extrapolation’ of the experience acquired there, is not a viable route. In virtually every relevant context, the level of ambition required by the two categories is worlds apart. A different way of thinking is needed.

The ​framework outlined earlier, associated with Vitruvius, Leonhardt and Billington, adopts an essentially structural approach in which the human being is present only implicitly. Using such an approach, the most gifted designers can create a bridge of impeccable structural elegance. Structural elegance remains a primary consideration, but it is far from sufficient.

A human-centred approach must retain structural elegance while extending it through the context of lived human experience; in other words, the human being must become explicitly present. Let us call this the context of ‘user experience’. I would base it on three elements: integration with the environment, additional functions and detailing. To achieve this objective, what we need is not a normative, diagnostic methodology, but an adaptive, generative one.

The ​interpretative range of human experience can be extended from Gestalt perception to phenomenological experience. Phenomenology can be applied to bridges only to a limited extent because certain senses may receive little or no stimulation. For motorists or users of public transport, for example, human experience is almost entirely visual. I have already noted that Zumthor’s and Alexander’s human-centred approaches move towards a comparable objective, although by very different routes. A method analogous to Alexander’s pattern language could prove fruitful if appropriately modified and adapted to bridge design. If we retain the linguistic metaphor, we must first create new words, then acquire a substantial active vocabulary, and finally learn the grammar before we can form meaningful sentences — bridges. The present language of bridge design is rather conservative and burdened by numerous ‘grammatical errors’. Alexander’s pattern language was not devised for bridges, but from a didactic perspective it may offer a useful basis for creating a kind of design ‘recipe book’.

There ​is little doubt that engineers and architects in the leading bridge-design practices could compile such a design guide, but doing so is not their task. Yet far more bridges are built around the world than these practices could ever design. The result is a multitude of bridges that are dull from an engineering point of view — or, worse, a process that degenerates into ‘visual pollution’. The only way to counter this is to make specialised knowledge, often dismissed as subjective, available in an accessible and intelligible form. Compiling such a ‘glossary’ is necessarily slow and is probably not a one-person undertaking. Without claiming completeness, I shall therefore present only a few examples here, accompanied by photographs as visual evidence.

Bridge-adapted patterns — ‘words’, in the linguistic analogy — that can support human-centred design, grouped according to scale (bridge environment, bridge, bridge detail) and formulated through the triad of context, problem and solution:

6.5.1 ​At the scale of the urban fabric or natural environment:

• ​​Approach and Arrival – Szent–Iványi Bridge

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  ​Context: ​For distinctive bridges where the positive effect of integration with the surroundings should be communicated directly to those approaching the bridge.
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  Problem: ​If the bridge cannot be seen in its entirety before the crossing begins, then in the case of a deck-type structure, for example, the user may perceive almost nothing of the bridge itself. Indirectly, this also suggests that where the approach alignment is nearly straight, a through-bridge configuration may be worth considering. Without a visual introduction there is no anticipation and no sense of arrival; there is scarcely any opportunity for Gestalt perception, lived human experience or the formation of a memorable event.
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  Solution: ​The approach road should be considered as part of the bridge composition. Introducing a curve can allow the entire structure gradually to come into view during the ascent, generating positive anticipation and transforming the act of crossing into an event.

• ​​Landscape–Tracing Bridge – Ijsselbrug

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  ​Context: ​Distinctive bridges in flat landscapes where sensitive integration with the surroundings is a primary consideration.
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  Problem: ​In a flat landscape, bridge alignments that rise abruptly and break sharply commit a kind of visual violence against the horizon. A poorly chosen form does not connect the two banks but visually divides the landscape. The character of lowland scenery is defined by seemingly endless horizontal lines. If a bridge rises steeply or meets the landscape at an acute angle, it appears as a ‘foreign body’. To the human eye, it is more reassuring when a monumental structure does not seem to defy gravity but appears instead to grow out of the ground as a natural continuation of the plain.
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  Solution: ​A structural form should preferably be selected that begins at the riverbank with a horizontal tangent. Curvature should develop gradually rather than abruptly; before spanning the water — or another obstacle — the bridge alignment should merge smoothly with the horizontal plane of the landscape.

• ​​The Park–To–Bridge Transition – Neue Eisenbahnbrücke

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  ​Context: ​For bridges longer than approximately 300–400 metres where a natural green corridor along the riverbank would otherwise conflict with concentrated urban traffic approaching the bridge.
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  Problem: ​The broad strip of asphalt leading to a bridge frequently cuts through residential areas and green spaces on either side, substantially reducing the usability and continuity of the bridge surroundings.
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  Solution: ​Two-level abutments should be considered so that the riverside green corridor can continue uninterrupted beneath the bridge. A considerable body of research has addressed the concept of ‘walking distance’, commonly taken to be around 400 metres: a distance that people are generally willing to cover on foot without resorting to another mode of transport. Where a bridge exceeds roughly 400 metres in total length, park-like green areas on both sides of the carriageway — or at least on one side — can significantly enhance the pedestrian experience.

6.5.2 ​At the scale of the bridge:

• ​​The Middle is the Place – Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, Pasarela de Callús

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  ​Context: ​For distinctive bridges where lived human experience during a pedestrian crossing is an important design consideration.
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  Problem: ​A bridge provided only with a narrow, constant-width footway immediately beside the carriageway offers pedestrians virtually no positive experience; it can feel more like a punishment. Even at the bridge’s most privileged position — the middle — the passer-by has little desire to stop. If someone does stop, they may obstruct pedestrian movement, assuming pedestrians are willing to use such an inhospitable crossing at all.
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  Solution: ​A modest widening at the centre of the bridge can provide a place to pause. This subtle ‘accent’ introduces a change of rhythm, a momentary rest and the possibility of a lived experience that may become a memory. A further advantage is gained when the footway can be separated from the carriageway, perhaps by an intervening visual screen or buffer, increasing pedestrians’ sense of safety and reducing traffic noise. Street furniture can greatly enrich the experience of pausing.

• ​​Segregation of Traffic – Pont de Tilff

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  ​Context: ​Any bridge on which pedestrians, cyclists, motor vehicles and other users are present simultaneously.
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  Problem: ​Mixing cars, bicycles and pedestrians on the same surface creates conflict and disorder. Differences in speed force the more vulnerable users into a state of constant vigilance, destroying the ‘street’ as a shared public space. Perceived safety is strongly conditioned by these speed differentials. If a pedestrian travelling at about 4 km/h, a cyclist at 20 km/h and a motorist at 50 km/h must share the same surface, the dominance of the fastest mode inevitably makes the slowest users anxious. Painted markings alone provide no meaningful protection: on the carriageway the cyclist may feel endangered by cars, while on the footway the cyclist becomes a threat to pedestrians. Such conflicts prevent the street from becoming anything more than a transport corridor and inhibit stopping, conversation and free movement.
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  Solution: ​Three or more physically distinct zones should be created, separating users travelling at different speeds through changes in level and planted buffer strips. The pedestrian zone should occupy the highest level, with tactile paving materials such as brick or stone reinforcing slow movement. The cycle route can occupy an intermediate asphalted level, separated from motor traffic by planting or street furniture. Motor vehicles should occupy the lowest level, rising to the level of the other zones only where crossings are necessary, in a manner comparable to a raised table. A level difference of at least one step — approximately 10–15 cm — should separate pedestrians from cyclists, while a wider protective strip incorporating trees or benches should separate cyclists from motor traffic.

• ​​The Bridge as a Destination – Melkwegbrug  

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  ​​Context: ​Distinctive urban bridges where a view revealed from an unusual height or perspective can substantially enrich the pedestrian experience.
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  Problem: ​The primary purpose of a bridge is to provide passage, yet its highest point naturally creates a desire to stop and look around. If people who wish to keep moving and those who wish to linger must share the same narrow strip, neither experience is fully satisfactory. On most bridges, the view is merely a ‘by-product’, enjoyed amid the noise and movement of cyclists or cars. A genuine viewpoint requires tranquillity and a perceptible sense of elevation above the horizon.
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  Solution: ​The unique opportunities offered by the structural form should be exploited, particularly where the bridge has a pronounced high point. Pedestrian circulation can be divided so that only those who actively seek the viewing experience need to climb to the elevated route.

6.5.3 At the scale of the bridge details:

• ​​The Resting Bench – Pasarela de Callús

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  ​Context: ​Distinctive bridges where enhancing the pedestrian experience is important. If, by some miracle, a bridge actually includes street furniture — a bench — and it is placed in a sheltered position that does not obstruct pedestrian movement, attention can then turn to the quality and comfort of the bench itself.
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  Problem: ​For reasons of maintenance, benches are often made entirely of metal or concrete. A metal seating surface can be practically unusable in both summer and winter and significantly diminishes the quality of human experience.
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  Solution: ​Metal or concrete benches should be provided with comfortable, ergonomically designed timber seats and backrests. ‘Warm’ timber surfaces that are pleasant to touch are important to sensory experience, while wood also conveys visual warmth and calm. A gently curved bench, rather than a strictly straight one, can encourage communication and interaction among those sitting on it. In this sense, the bench actively ‘serves’ lived human experience.

• ​​​The Mastic-Asphalt Cycle Path – Parkburg Spoor Noord

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  ​Context: ​For bridges where the long-term durability of cycle lanes and a safe, slip-resistant riding surface are important.
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  Problem: ​Sand-broadcast epoxy surfaces are poorly suited to cycle traffic, despite being surprisingly widespread. The aggregate particles that provide texture can wear away or become dislodged relatively quickly under traffic and braking forces; in many cases, the epoxy layer itself also wears through.
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  Solution: ​Cycle lanes should preferably be surfaced with integrally coloured mastic asphalt — that is, material coloured throughout rather than painted after laying. Anyone sceptical of this recommendation should examine bridges in countries with high levels of cycle traffic where epoxy surfacing has been in service for at least five years.

• ​The Luminous Handrail – Štvanická footbridge

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  ​​Context: ​For bridges where safe night-time movement must be ensured without lighting fixtures obstructing the panorama or causing glare for users.
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  Problem: ​Conventional street lighting mounted on tall columns can generate light pollution, dazzle people who wish to stop and visually overwhelm an otherwise slender bridge structure. Strong overhead light casts hard shadows and prevents the eye from adapting to the darker tones of the surrounding landscape or water. For cyclists and pedestrians, the essential requirement is uniform illumination of the movement surface — not illumination of the sky.
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  Solution: ​Light sources should be integrated directly into the bridge handrail and directed exclusively downwards onto the walking surface, creating a continuous, even and glare-free ‘carpet of light’. LED technology concealed within a groove on the underside of the handrail allows the bridge itself to become the lighting fixture. The solution traces the bridge alignment after dark while preserving darkness above eye level, so that city lights — or even the stars — remain visible.

​6.6 ​Interpreting the human–centred approach through examples

​As I mentioned in the previous section, enhancing the user experience and structural elegance are both necessary for designing a 'good' bridge. Regarding the enhancement of the user experience, I have identified three elements, which I would like to discuss below, illustrating them with examples.

The ​strong claim made at the beginning of this essay — that no Hungarian bridge yet satisfies, in every respect, the ‘higher’ expectations implied by a human-centred approach combined with finely resolved structural elegance — may become more comprehensible here. My intention is not to cast any individual designer or practice in a negative light, but to make the qualitative differences between bridges visible. Unless we learn to recognise distinctions that are, in many cases, strikingly obvious, meaningful progress is impossible. The spectrum extends from Győrszentiván footbridge (2019) and Swan Bridge at Felcsút (2023), through Esterházy Bridge in Kaposvár (2020) and Robinson Bridge in Budapest (2023), to Grand Canal Gateway Bridge in Hangzhou (2025) and Passerelle Albi (2025). 

6.6.1 ​​Integration with the environment (scale of the bridge surroundings)

​Perhaps ​the most serious mistake a designer can make is to concentrate excessively on form while disregarding the context of environmental integration. A basic level of response to the surroundings has always formed part of bridge design. What I am trying to describe through the human-centred approach is a more demanding level, at which the historical and cultural contexts must also be evoked. If the genius loci cannot be grasped, the result is merely an enormous utilitarian object — a gigantic mobile phone, car or aircraft. Such objects can be placed almost anywhere because they possess no intrinsic relationship with their surroundings; they operate autonomously. A ‘good’ bridge, by contrast, cannot function in this way.

​Tisza Bridge on the M44 motorway (2021) ​is, in my view, a self-referential structure that suffers from a striking absence of context. The designer had previously proposed essentially the same configuration for a Danube crossing near Esztergom; the form remained unchanged, while only the span was reduced. Unfortunately, the bridge would not have belonged convincingly to the Esztergom landscape either, because contextual integration is not inherent in this formal concept. The gateway motif is potentially rich in contextual meaning, but retrospective analogies used to justify the chosen form do not rescue it from self-reference; they read more as explanation after the fact. There are, of course, iconic forms and bridges intended to represent a world exhibition or an entire city, but that is not the situation here. Similar pylon geometries can also be found elsewhere in the world — sometimes meaningfully embedded in context, sometimes equally self-serving. In Turin footbridge (2005), ​for example, the curved pylon geometry recalls the industrial halls designed by the city’s celebrated architect and standing immediately beside the bridge. I do not know the contexts of the comparable Far Eastern bridges, ​but comparison with them would raise another problem in the Tisza Bridge: proportion. Pylon height, pylon cross-section, span, cable inclination and the position at which the cables are anchored into the pylon all participate in a system of proportions. A recurrent problem in Hungarian bridge design is that the required span is not proportionate to the width of a six-lane carriageway. Put simply, a pylon height proportionate to the span may become disproportionate to the deck width. A bridge of this type could work convincingly at a span of around 300 metres; at approximately 150 metres, the same formal logic produces imbalance.

​This question of proportion merits a brief digression. Rotterdam’s Erasmusbrug carries two traffic lanes in each direction together with two tram tracks, as does the prize-winning proposal for Budapest’s Galvani Bridge. Yet a broadly comparable crossing distance is resolved in the first case by a single tall pylon and in the second by two low pylons symmetrically opposed to one another. In both bridges, the pylon legs flank the carriageway. The designer transformed the iconic geometry of the Erasmusbrug in order to satisfy the new dimensional requirements, but the formal cost was considerable: roughly half the span and half the pylon height, combined with essentially the same pylon-leg spacing, produced a  loss of proportion. ​How an internationally renowned architectural practice chooses to compromise its own formal legacy is its own affair; more difficult to understand is why the Hungarian jury selected this disproportionate proposal, which moreover failed to satisfy all the competition requirements. If the jury was unwilling to select Zaha Hadid’s bridge — Virlogeux, as chairman, was hardly likely to endorse an uneconomical and difficult-to-build solution, however beautiful it might have been — then a winner should at least have been chosen from among the proportionate and constructible alternatives.

​T​he integration of the Danube bridge currently under construction at Mohács raises a different set of problems. I know the design constraints and site conditions, but anyone who does not will struggle to understand why the single river pier occupies precisely its chosen position. The resulting visual subdivision is disturbing and, in my view, immediately limits the possibility of the structure becoming a ‘good’ bridge. It is a fundamental weakness when a bridge of this scale cannot visually ‘account for’ the position of its own supports. I know of at least two cable-stayed alternatives: one with the pylon located at the same river-pier position and another with the pylon on the left bank. In the former case an asymmetrical cable arrangement would have been appropriate; in the latter, a symmetrical arrangement would have been inherently convincing because the pylon position would itself define the place. The jury instead selected a  sequence of arch bridges ​recalling the formal language of Pentele Bridge — and repeated it three times. Pentele Bridge (2007) belongs, in my view, to the category of structurally uninspiring bridges whose superstructure received virtually no architectural articulation. Constant-section arches and unresolved cross-bracing create a monotonous image, intensified by equally repetitive red lighting columns. At Mohács, fortunately, the arch cross-sections vary, producing a considerably more refined visual effect. The slender hangers will remain visually recessive, particularly against the sky. This is advantageous: with two hanger planes, an oblique view would otherwise produce a confusing visual field despite the strict geometrical order of the network arrangement. I tried to keep my distance from the bridge’s architectural development, but the original cross-bracing was so visually characterless that I felt compelled to intervene. The lattice configuration I developed echoes the network of the hangers while remaining clearly distinct through its substantially larger member sizes. The surface stretched between the arches reads simultaneously as open and solid, an effect produced by the pattern of the lattice members and their stronger sections. Several Gestalt principles operate together, allowing the eye to perceive a continuous texture ​capable of giving the bridge a recognisable character. Without it, the structure would risk becoming visually anonymous. Fortunately, the co-designers were also persuaded by the effect, and the motif now extends across all three arches.

​​My favourite bridge in Budapest, Szabadság (Liberty) Bridge (1896), provides an intriguing example of contextual integration. In some respects it is exemplary and in others a counter-example; precisely this ambiguity makes it so remarkable. I frequently return to it, and here I am concerned specifically with its suspension-bridge appearance. The original competition brief required a ‘suspension-bridge character’, intended to harmonise with the existing Széchenyi Chain Bridge (1849) and with the panorama of the Buda Hills. In other words, the client explicitly demanded integration with the cityscape. Such formal requirements are rare today, although in certain regions they could be highly productive.

Historical and cultural context fundamentally influence environmental integration. When handled with sensitivity, they can preserve the genius loci — or, more simply, intensify the character of a place.

​From the standpoint of historical context, I distinguish three types:

• ​​First, bridge renovation: an existing bridge is renewed, while its fundamental relationship with the surroundings remains largely unchanged. Ideally, renovation should also improve the user experience — and, one hopes, not only visually.
• ​Second, the complementary-bridge condition discussed earlier: a new deck or another element that enhances user experience is added in order to extend the function of an existing bridge. The new intervention must respond sensitively to the older structure, while the combined composition must continue to belong convincingly to its surroundings.
• ​Third, an entirely new bridge may be constructed on the ruins of an earlier bridge or immediately beside them, while deliberately recalling the former structure in order to acknowledge the historical and/or cultural context.

​Conventional bridge reconstructions of the first type are naturally worthy of respect, whether one considers the refurbishment of Széchenyi Chain Bridge (2023) or the exemplary reconstruction of the railway bridges at Gyulafirátót (2025). Yet such projects rarely venture far beyond an established ‘comfort zone’, even though both incorporated numerous entirely new structural components and details. I do not suggest that departure from familiar solutions is always easy, but designers should at least be capable of presenting credible alternatives. If designers do not propose them — or do so unconvincingly — clients will remain within an ever-narrower comfort zone of their own. In the case of the Chain Bridge, a more pedestrian-oriented transformation in which the lattice stiffening girders on either side were omitted — incidentally bringing the appearance closer to the original — could have moved the project significantly towards a human-centred approach. At Gyulafirátót, only maintenance personnel can ‘enjoy’ the interior of the truss; by contrast, at Erste Hinterrheinbrücke (2021), ​the public can already occupy and experience the ‘inside’ of the bridge.

​Ponte Borgo Tossignano (2005) and the recently completed  Passerelle Albi (2025) ​belong to the second type. In both cases the new intervention is carefully attuned to the appearance of the older bridge and to its immediate setting. These additions, generally intended for pedestrian use, perform strongly across the full range from Gestalt perception to phenomenological experience. Their successful integration also depends on structural elegance, a quality characteristic of virtually every convincing example of this type. Unfortunately, I cannot identify a comparable Hungarian case.

The​ third type includes Pont Trencat (2004) and Passerelle Poissy ​(under development), but here Hungarian examples can also be discussed. The reconstruction of the Ipoly bridges created an exceptional opportunity that, unfortunately, was not exploited as fully as it might have been — even though almost all the necessary ingredients were present, with the possible exception of sufficient funding.

​Before the Second World War, dozens of bridges crossed the Ipoly. Under a Slovak–Hungarian agreement, reconstruction of these crossings gradually began. Five have so far been completed: Madách Bridge at Rárós (2011), Katalin Bridge at Pösténypuszta (2012), Károly Róbert Bridge at Ipolydamásd (2023), Szent-Iványi Bridge at Ipolyvarbó (2023) and Szent Borbála Bridge at Drégelypalánk (2024).

​Thanks to Bence Hajós’s research, source material capable of informing the designers was already available in the early 2000s. The initial momentum generated by civic groups endured for a surprisingly long time, but reconstruction of the Ipoly crossings was never a political priority, and bureaucratic processes slowed progress considerably. During the preparatory phase, future bridge sites were identified. Three design variants were still produced for the first bridge; by the second, however, cost reduction had become so severe that the outcome was close to unacceptable from the standpoint of bridge architecture. The following three bridges then required a wait of more than a decade, once again largely because of insufficient funding.

​The client did express a preference for aesthetically distinguished and individual bridges, but financial constraints pushed the process in the opposite direction. Under such conditions it is perhaps unsurprising that no comprehensive bridge-architectural concept was developed for the region. Yet the landscape possesses a remarkably coherent character, and the historical sources show that timber bridges and masonry arch bridges once formed a recurring local tradition. A unified architectural language could therefore have been defined, potentially extending even to preferred structural types. Unfortunately, the client did not pursue this opportunity, while the design side also appears gradually to have lost interest in historical context — perhaps a consequence of the demoralising effect of continuous cost reduction. Further west, a comparable situation might have prompted the development of a family of timber–concrete composite bridges capable of addressing both sustainability and historical continuity. In fairness, one of the three variants for the first crossing was indeed a timber road bridge, but the client did not select it.

​Madách Bridge ​was rebuilt in the image of a masonry arch bridge. By Hungarian standards, the result is notably successful: the historical context is legible in the evocation of old stone arches, while the cobbled pavement and the statue of St John of Nepomuk placed on the solid parapet are particularly thoughtful details. My criticism concerns the manner of historical evocation. Cladding the side faces of a reinforced-concrete arch with natural stone is, in my reading, at odds with structural honesty. A similar logic can be seen in reinforced-concrete reconstructions in Buda Castle that operate almost as stage scenery. These are illusions in the less productive sense of the word. Contemporary bridge architecture is capable of subtler responses: one need only consider Kettenbrücke Aarau (2023), ​where exposed concrete and an inventive formal language are combined within the image of an arch bridge, or the road bridge on the outskirts of Eindhoven (2021).

U​nfortunately, the Katalin Bridge strongly reveals the fragmentation caused by lack of funding. It is visually anonymous in almost every respect, even though the provision of pavements on both sides and public lighting could have supported a far more considered bridge.

Károly Róbert Bridge ​was initially conceived with a span of around 100 metres and a dramatic diagonal steel arch, but financial pressure forced the abutments closer together. The built version is visually disappointing, a problem aggravated by disproportionate abutment walls and steep, hard-surfaced embankment cones. Meaningful integration with the landscape is difficult to discern, despite the potentially favourable curved alignment of the approach road.

​I was the lead engineer and designer for the Szent–Iványi Bridge ​and therefore remember the circumstances of its design well. It is the smallest of the five crossings, and cost reduction had progressed so far that the river was initially to be spanned by the cheapest possible system of precast reinforced-concrete beams. Fortunately, an opportunity arose to redesign the bridge, and I took it. My aim was to create a structure that would not compete with the church at Ipolyvarbó on the Slovak side, while still allowing the historical context to be evoked. Approaching from Hungary, the previously described ‘Approach and Arrival’ pattern works particularly well: the side elevation of the bridge gradually becomes visible, with the church forming a striking background. I selected a two-girder steel bridge with a lowered deck because it allowed both the roadway level and the structural depth to be kept as low as possible. By shaping the external stiffening ribs of the main girders, it was possible to evoke the curved profile associated with historic masonry arches. The reference is deliberately indirect and therefore, I believe, more elegant: it is not the girder itself but its shadow that draws the desired arch. Unfortunately, the absence of footways means that no direct pedestrian experience can develop, so the visual experience is available only to motorists and cyclists. The experiential quality was further reduced because my proposed use of weathering steel could not be realised; for many local users, the appearance of rusted steel still carries associations quite different from those intended architecturally.

​Szent Borbála Bridge ​is a well-proportioned and graceful tied-arch bridge, with an attractive arch profile and an engaging structural configuration. In terms of structural elegance it performs very well; perhaps the only detail open to criticism is the triangulation of warped plate surfaces. The curvature of the approach road also satisfies the ‘Approach and Arrival’ pattern. The arch begins with an almost horizontal tangent, an ideal condition for integration with a flat landscape. I can identify only one substantial weakness: the absence of any meaningful evocation of historical context. The bridge could have been built almost anywhere and would probably work well almost anywhere, but it does not capture and intensify the genius loci — the specific character of this place.

In ​summary, a coherent regional bridge-architectural language could have strengthened the identity of the Ipoly landscape, just as a unified approach was successfully achieved for the Tisza Lake footbridges (2020), where all four bridges were designed by the same practice. Consistent stylistic principles could equally be required for bridges along particular motorways or, for example, for the structures now being reconstructed on Budapest’s Ferihegy expressway. A coherent family resemblance and the demand for individually designed bridges are not contradictory; on the contrary, they can reinforce one another. The Zaan region, also discussed by Smits, provides a useful international precedent: its bridges share recurring characteristics — curved forms, white finishes and slender tubular steel members — while each remains individually designed. The family even includes two movable bridges, Prins Bernhardbrug (2007) and Julianabrug (2009).

​The ​list could continue at length, but two further bridges deserve particular mention. Pont Schuman (2014) in Lyon is ​inserted between two older suspension bridges with central river piers and takes the form of a two-span road arch bridge. Its arch geometry evokes a gull descending towards the water, while the inverted arch profile also establishes a formal dialogue with the neighbouring suspension bridges. Beyond its sensitive response to historical and cultural context, the bridge also performs strongly in phenomenological terms. Benches are placed within a protected pedestrian zone from which the adjacent historic suspension bridge can be viewed. I know few better examples of a bridge intensifying the character of its place.

Pont de Tilff (2021) ​is an unusually configured and remarkably user-friendly bridge. Here, integration with the surroundings is achieved less through the abstract form of the load-bearing system than through the organisation of use. On one side lies the town’s attractive main square extending to the waterfront; on the other, the railway station. Road traffic occupies the upper deck of the under-deck-stiffened structure, while pedestrians and cyclists pass below, close to the water and completely separated from motor traffic. The two levels are connected by distinctive, lightweight multi-flight steel stairways. In formal language, material selection and landscape design alike, the bridge is exemplary. It is difficult to think of another bridge that combines such complexity with comparable beauty, richness of detail and human scale.

6.6.2 ​​Multi–functional bridges (scale of the bridge)

​Multi–functional bridges are predominantly footbridges, ​but I am strongly convinced that the same principle can — and should — be extended to road bridges. There are already examples elsewhere in the world, so I am by no means alone in this view, although very few such bridges have yet been realised. It is striking that two of the designers making the greatest advances in this field, Marc Mimram and Dietmar Feichtinger, are precisely those whose Budapest lecture in 2009, mentioned earlier, had such a profound influence on me.

​Footbridges can be classified in many ways, but perhaps the most revealing distinction is between path, node and landmark. Bridges characterised as a ‘path’ are generally simple, mono-functional structures that carry users across an obstacle but often provide little or no experiential value beyond fulfilling that primary task. The ‘node’ category comprises bridges with additional functions that create places in which pedestrians can pause, rest and engage in social life. Such a place may be more enclosed and spatially differentiated than an ordinary urban square, allowing the user experience to unfold more fully. ‘Landmark’ bridges, by contrast, are explicitly sculptural or iconic structures conceived primarily to attract attention. The triad path–node–landmark can also be expressed as continuity–proximity–identity, terms that perhaps reveal the underlying distinction even more clearly.

​Franchissement urbain Pleyel in Saint–Denis (2026) creates a public space a​above one of Europe’s largest railway complexes. Mimram conceived it as an ‘inhabitable bridge’: beyond its transport function, it is intended to operate as a communal space accommodating places to rest, viewing terraces and various service functions. The pedestrian section has been in use since 2024, while the road component is due to be completed in 2026. The structure, formed from Vierendeel girders characteristic of Mimram’s work, simultaneously constitutes the bridge’s load-bearing system and a ‘covered space’ capable of accommodating pedestrians; recessed planting beds are integrated into it. Street furniture, broad stepped elements resembling landscape terraces, and ramps articulate a surface that in functional terms serves an intermodal transport hub.

​Pont Anne de Bretagne in Nantes ​is scheduled for completion in 2028, but its 3,000-tonne steel structure arrived by sea ​from Italy at the mouth of the Loire in January 2026 before continuing upriver towards central Nantes. At 60 metres wide, the bridge is intended to become the widest in Europe. It will accommodate two tram tracks, cycle lanes, pedestrian areas and planted spaces, while providing only one road-traffic lane in each direction. A broad new steel structure will be added alongside the existing bridge, increasing the overall width to almost three times its present dimension. The resulting bridge will become a public space above the Loire, functioning partly as a hanging garden and partly as an urban park: planted areas will occupy 18 per cent of the total bridge surface, while 43 per cent will be reserved exclusively for pedestrians. Whereas Mimram’s Pleyel project seeks to make an intermodal hub more habitable, Feichtinger’s Nantes project is explicitly conceived as a public park over water. As at Pleyel, the new bridge surface will contain abundant street furniture, ramps and stepped areas suitable for sitting; these interventions are concentrated on the new structure because the existing bridge deck is almost level. Planted strips separate pedestrians from faster-moving users, reducing conflicts and allowing the pedestrian areas to function as genuinely protected space.

Feichtinger achieved international recognition with the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir in Paris (2006). ​Curved, step-free ramps from the upper and lower quays converge in the bridge’s central, lens-shaped, two-level public space. The upper level offers expansive views, while the covered lower level, furnished with benches, provides a calm place to rest. Here Gestalt perception and phenomenological experience are developed to an unusually high degree. The visual and acoustic qualities of the timber deck, the proximity, appearance and smell of the water, and the calm alignment and generous width of the pedestrian routes together create an exceptionally rich experience for those who wish either to cross or to linger. The bridge is a near-perfect embodiment of the previously discussed ‘The Middle Is the Place’ pattern.

​Most na Karowej (2024) ​spans the Vistula in Warsaw. More than 450 metres long, the weathering-steel pedestrian and cycle bridge follows a subtly broken alignment and already possesses a generous deck width, which expands further at intervals to create places where pedestrians can sit during the long crossing. Benches rise from the widened areas on one side, while on the other a sequence of two or three broad steps provides informal seating. From the upper step, users can even lean comfortably against the inclined structural element that rises above deck level. Along the riverbank, flights of steps employing a similar formal language and material palette extend the bridge’s design into the surrounding public realm. Exemplary in virtually every respect, the bridge has become a popular city-centre destination from which both the river and Warsaw can be experienced.

Erfurt's Promenadendeck (2022) ​is an unusual pedestrian and cycle bridge that also functions as public space. It consists of two deck strips forming an acute angle in plan, one rising and the other descending towards the abutment. The steep triangular surface enclosed between the two ramps has been transformed into a flight of steps. As in many successful public-space projects, the double-height steps also act as timber-clad seating. Conventional bridge design might simply have treated this wedge-shaped area as residual space; the human-centred approach instead converts it into an additional urban place. Simple interventions of this kind can create popular communal spaces almost anywhere within the urban fabric.

Pasarela de Callús (2008) ​is likewise an apparently simple footbridge, distinguished by a gently broken alignment. The change in direction occurs at a terraced widening above the river. Structurally, it is a two-girder through bridge in which the main girders also form the parapets, except at the central terrace, where the girder drops below the terrace slab. The ‘The Middle Is the Place’ pattern captures the essence of the bridge, but its experiential quality is reinforced by an abundance of carefully resolved details. The weathering-steel structure, meticulously shaped lighting columns, timber deck, brushed-metal balustrade components, three central benches, the few steps descending to the terrace, and the individually formed exposed-concrete piers and abutments together reveal exceptional design ability, stylistic judgement, and an assured understanding of form and material. Xavier Font was also responsible for the previously discussed Pont Trencat (2004), where ​sensitivity to both the physical setting and historical context intensifies the genius loci.

​Paleisbrug (2015)​ is a pedestrian and cycle bridge that simultaneously functions as a hanging garden. Located in ’s-Hertogenbosch, it follows a straight alignment, with its central section spanning the railway. This middle portion is a two-girder through truss. The project was the renowned Dutch landscape architect Piet Oudolf’s second bridge-related commission after New York’s High Line​. The landscape concept divides the 250-metre-long bridge into three zones: outer sections characterised by savannah-like planting and taller trees, and a central section planted with lower vegetation. Planting beds are recessed into the deck, while the walking surface is heated so that de-icing salt is unnecessary during winter. I visited the bridge two years after completion in order to experience its usability directly. Dutch trains are surprisingly quiet, so railway noise did not disrupt the phenomenological experience. The proximity of vegetation, warm sunlight, the tactile quality of timber-clad benches and the more intimate planted terraces positioned outside the structural frame all contributed to a highly agreeable experience. The path-like ‘continuity’ of crossing above the railway is therefore complemented by the sense of ‘proximity’ characteristic of successful public spaces.

​Passerelle Zwolle (2025) ​is another hanging garden above a railway, constructed in the interests of sustainability from glued-laminated timber girders and a CLT deck slab. Its S-shaped alignment is particularly favourable from a human-centred perspective because the bridge and its surroundings are continuously revealed from changing viewpoints. This effect is intensified by guiding pedestrians diagonally across the generous deck width from one edge to the other. Because the CLT deck itself is horizontal, most planting has only 20–30 centimetres of growing medium; small mounds therefore had to be formed for trees and shrubs requiring greater soil depth. A fountain at the centre of the bridge supplies water to the planted areas. The water remains legible on the surface as it flows towards the abutments through channels that alternate between covered and open sections. At one abutment the planting itself appears to ‘flow down’ between the stairs, while the water descends through a sequence of miniature waterfalls. Numerous timber-clad benches are distributed along the bridge: some face outward and function as viewing terraces, while others turn inward. In form, materiality and richness of detail, the footbridge approaches an ideal synthesis in which both Gestalt perception and phenomenological experience have clearly been considered.

​T​he use of planting on Hungarian bridges remains extremely limited. I can identify only two examples: Esterházy Bridge in Kaposvár (2020) and Bosch Campus footbridge ​in Budapest (2023). On the former, planting beds are placed along the bridge axis between the stay-cable anchorage points. This central planted strip is integrated with benches, and pergolas at one end of the bridge further contribute to the user experience. In the latter case, however, a wire-mesh fence incorporated into a parapet wall separates the planted area from the walking surface. In this form, the arrangement almost negates the very idea of human experience, despite the attempt to make the crossing more user-friendly by providing benches with timber seats. Fall protection is of course essential, but the result resembles an enclosure: pens are appropriate for animals, not for employees seeking fresh air.

I​ would like to return to the proposition stated earlier: urban road bridges should be endowed with the benefits of additional functions so that genuinely ‘liveable’, ‘good’ bridges can emerge. Making a road bridge human-centred is considerably more difficult than doing so with a footbridge, but that difficulty is precisely what makes the challenge worthwhile. Around 2020–2021 I developed the fictional Chameleon Bridge, based on the long-discussed alignment of the Aquincum Danube Bridge. At that time I knew of no international precedent that could guide the integration of the many additional functions I envisaged into an urban road bridge, which gave me considerable freedom to experiment. Looking back five or six years later, the conceptual approach of Pont Anne de Bretagne ​in Nantes is perhaps the closest parallel to my own proposal, although fortunately the two still differ in many respects.

​As I argued in a 2021 blog post, an urban bridge may sensibly be constructed with the capacity for two traffic lanes in each direction, but this does not mean that all four lanes must be marked for general motor traffic. Cars might use one lane in each direction, while the remaining lanes could be reserved for public transport or reassigned to cycling; narrower cycle lanes could in turn be separated by planted buffers. Such reserve capacity may become valuable when an adjacent bridge is temporarily closed for reconstruction. ‘Green’ bridges are often criticised as greenwashing or for their large embodied-carbon footprint. Additional dead load requires additional structural material, and the emissions associated with that material may indeed exceed the carbon that bridge vegetation could sequester over its lifetime. That observation can be correct, but it is not the only meaningful comparison. The additional material should also be considered against the positive experiences generated for bridge users and the wider benefits of a more liveable environment. These effects are admittedly difficult to reduce to a common metric. A bridge with a favourable carbon calculation would still be a poor outcome if it created an uninhabitable environment that people had no reason to use.

Everything ​we build influences our environment, our behaviour and, ultimately, our decisions. A more attractive environment encourages walking and cycling; greater numbers of pedestrians and cyclists, in turn, support a more active public life. By contrast, travelling in an enclosed car tends towards social isolation. ​If people have places in which they can encounter one another rather than remaining at home absorbed by manufactured media scares and polarized political propaganda, urban life can become more animated, safer, more sustainable and healthier. Put more concisely and in more academic terms: bridges that incorporate public spaces can act as social catalysts.

I​n an earlier lecture I summarised the conditions that may enable public spaces to develop successfully on urban bridges:

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  ​​accessible within walking distance (​approximately 400 m);
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  ​the possibility of crossing without changes in level;
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  ​conflict-free movement, including for pedestrians and cyclists;
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  ​a physically defined and protected pedestrian zone, at least visually;
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  ​multiple perspectives, including a viewpoint function;
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  ​separate, intimate spaces with benches, loungers or other street furniture;
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  ​proximity to the water — its smell and sound;
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  ​proximity to vegetation — its colour, scent and environmental effect;
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  ​shaded areas that moderate temperature;
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  ​a degree of detailing and refinement appropriate to the speed at which users move.

​The concept for Tisza Bridge in Szeged, ​initiated in 2021, developed directly from ideas refined through the Chameleon Bridge. The earlier configuration of three consecutive arched trusses was reduced to a single principal arch, but the user experience created by the additional functions was not diminished.

When ​discussing integration with the environment, I argued that one of a designer’s greatest mistakes is to become attached to a form and regard it as universally ‘deployable’. That criticism applies when the form fails to belong to its setting. In my view, however, this particular geometry could work equally well at the Aquincum Danube crossing, here in Szeged, or even in the Dutch lowlands. The previously described ‘Landscape-Tracing Bridge’ pattern is clearly present. The same curved structural motif reappears in the entrances to the pedestrian underpasses on both banks. The ‘Approach and Arrival’ pattern is also legible, particularly when approaching from Újszeged, as is the ‘Park-to-Bridge Transition’, since both abutments and riverbank areas follow the same design principles. At the scale of the bridge itself, the patterns ‘The Middle Is the Place’, ‘Segregation of Traffic’ and ‘The Bridge as a Destination’ are likewise fulfilled. At the scale of detail, the ‘Resting Bench’, ‘Mastic-Asphalt Cycle Path’ and ‘Luminous Handrail’ patterns are also present. It may sound immodest, but the defining quality of a ‘good’ bridge is not an iconic form; it is the simultaneous fulfilment of as many meaningful patterns as possible, allowing the bridge to become ‘alive’. Given Hungarian circumstances, it is impossible to know whether this bridge will ever be built in this form, despite the existence of detailed construction drawings. I could discuss its additional functions and their contribution to lived human experience at much greater length, but these are documented on my website and blog. 

6.6.3 ​​Detailing (scale of bridge elements)

​Careful detailing is particularly important on footbridges. More precisely, it is important on every bridge on which pedestrians are present. The appropriate degree of refinement should fundamentally correspond to the speed at which users pass through the structure. The level of detail demanded of a railway or motorway bridge is therefore naturally different from that expected of a distinctive footbridge in a city centre.

The subject can be approached in many ways: through a systematic discussion of individual bridges, through the characteristic design language of notable designers, or through the interpretative spectrum of human experience, from Gestalt perception to phenomenological experience.

​As ​noted earlier, Xavier Font’s talent is unusually broad, and nowhere is this more evident than in his detailing. At Pasarela de Callús (2008), ​the pronounced horizontality of the superstructure is set against extremely slender vertical piers. Material choice reinforces the contrast: the superstructure is weathering steel, while the piers are exposed concrete bearing the imprint of their formwork. The piers have a hockey-stick profile, widening towards the rear, and even the formwork lines deliberately avoid the horizontal. The steel main girders are box sections that widen downwards, with webs inclined rather than vertical. Lighting columns are cantilevered from the outer faces of the main girders. Every plane and every individual form is clearly defined rather than accidental. The restrained material palette is limited to weathering steel, exposed concrete, brushed-metal balustrade elements and timber surfacing. Pont de Callús (2017), ​immediately beside the earlier footbridge, is a grillage structure whose outer steel girders likewise have inclined webs. In side elevation, paired stiffening ribs welded to the outer faces form a clear rhythm aligned with the posts of the vehicle restraint system. Bespoke bearing elements support the two inner girders because the original narrow piers were retained. Pasarela Can Gili (2010), ​with its kinked steel main girder, exhibits the same recurring material and formal vocabulary. Font has also introduced considerable innovation into Warren-truss structures. The diagonal members of the main girders at Pasarela Joan Camps (2007), Pasarela Sant Pere Sacarrera (2011) and Pasarela Montornes (2015) are each individually resolved, while the material palette remains recognisably consistent. Every one of Font’s hierarchically articulated structures — and especially their details — rewards close study.

T​he Warren truss also recurs in the work of other practices, including Moxon Architects. On Espérance Bridge (2021), the compression diagonals and the upper and lower chords are T-shaped members fabricated from individually formed plates, whereas the tension diagonals are pin-ended members with a deliberately contrasting appearance. Lilleakerbyen Broer ​in Oslo, currently under development, comprises three bridges employing three different material systems. One is an under-deck-stiffened footbridge with two glued-laminated timber main girders, a solution that can by now almost be considered a contemporary classic. The second is a pedestrian and cycle bridge formed from post-tensioned granite elements, with transverse members — also functioning as parapet components — clamped between the stone blocks. The third is an S-shaped steel pedestrian and cycle bridge with a box-girder cross-section. All three combine a restrained formal language with distinctive structural systems and numerous carefully developed bespoke details.

​​X-bracing has been a perennial theme for structural designers from Telford to the present day. Ney & Partners have produced perhaps two of the most elegant formal resolutions of the problem of intersecting members. Both  Briandsbrug (2020) in Ingelmünster and Tintagel Castle Footbridge (2020) ​use X-shaped bracing to connect the upper and lower chords. In the former, the X is cut from a plate and strengthened by welding flat bars along the plate edges associated with the obtuse angles, thereby creating T-ribs. In the latter, the solid steel members do not in fact cross: two half-X elements, each kinked at the centre, are welded together, while adjacent erection units are connected by two bolts at their boundaries.

​Deep-web I-girders can appear visually too solid, and perforating the web can therefore be advantageous. Vierendeel systems provide another long-established solution, one repeatedly used by Marc Mimram. He employed Vierendeel articulation in the arch of the bridge now known as  Passerelle Solferino (1999) – now known as Passerelle Léopold–Sédar–Senghor – and in the main girder of Bath Footbridge (2023). ​Bath bridge is particularly intriguing structurally: at the location where the two chord plates would theoretically intersect — the point of zero bending moment — they remain separate, while the Vierendeel verticals become progressively more closely spaced over the support.

Many other practices and structural details that function as recognisable stylistic devices could be discussed. In reality, however, much of this refinement is appreciated most fully by engineers. The ordinary bridge visitor is often more immediately affected by the phenomenological richness produced by varied materials, or by an ‘illusion’ generated through one of the principles of Gestalt perception. One example of each will suffice.

​At the previously discussed  Tintagel Castle Footbridge (2020), ​the symbiosis between varied materiality and meticulously resolved detail is especially evident. Before stepping onto the bridge, pedestrians already perceive its extraordinary slenderness; the direct phenomenological experience begins with the act of entering it. The walking surface is composed of approximately 40,000 hand-cut slate pieces laid on edge, creating an exceptionally distinctive texture. The specially shaped brushed-stainless-steel balustrade components provide another strong visual impression, while the English green-oak handrail adds a further tactile dimension. Combined with the breathtaking view, these material sensations are highly likely to be retained as a lasting memory.

T​he range of possible Gestalt effects is almost unlimited, but one bridge within El Valle Trenzado near Alicante ​offers a particularly instructive example. The pale exposed-concrete surface of the Y-shaped reinforced-concrete girder contrasts strongly with four dark, slender piers. The figure–ground principle is particularly effective: because the piers lean in different directions, they are perceived almost as the trunks of palm trees. The illusion is remarkably complete, and the first reaction may be one of surprise at how such a reinforced-concrete bridge can span so far. If the piers were vertical and regularly arranged, larger in cross-section, or similar in colour to the superstructure, the eye would no longer pass over them in the same way and the perceptual effect would disappear.

M​y criticism of recent Hungarian bridges is rooted largely in the absence of considered detailing — or in a visually incoherent accumulation of details. The impression is often that insufficient time remained to resolve them, leaving the bridge to coexist with elements that share no meaningful visual language. Worse still is the situation in which the designer does not recognise the visual damage caused by retaining a handful of stylistically incompatible details. As a practising engineer, I know that time is never sufficient and that details are often the first casualties. Avoiding this would require either a substantial shared knowledge base or some form of ‘style adviser’ on whom designers could reliably draw. Until such support exists, weak solutions will continue to recur. If criticism of them is itself discouraged, the problem becomes more serious still: errors become normalised and everyone simply looks away.

As ​argued earlier, the speed at which a bridge is experienced fundamentally affects both the nature and the required degree of detailing. A road bridge remote from an urban area calls for a different level of refinement from a city-centre footbridge. I shall continue with recent Hungarian examples.

​On Pál Tomori Bridge (2024), ​numerous small — and some not so small — details could have been improved. The pylons have an elliptical cross-section, a geometry without corners or sharp edges except for the two recessed vertical pilaster-like strips. Below the level of the footway cantilever, however, this form continues as an angular, downward-tapering trapezoidal face with pronounced edges: structurally, this is the support diaphragm of the box girder. Yet the pylon should read as a single continuous form from its crown to the bearing on the pier. The horizontal footway cantilever visually separates the two components, although structurally and compositionally they are not independent. The recessed strip, approximately one-third of the pylon width, does not continue below the footway slab, even though the repetitive ribs of the corrugated-web box girder appear to be of roughly the same width. To me, this suggests that the two elements were never fully resolved as a single visual composition. There seems to have been no obvious obstacle to shaping the ends of the support diaphragm with constant thickness, a continuing vertical recess and elliptical rounding. A similar contradiction exists between the trapezoidal frontal face of the diaphragm and the curved, cap-like termination of the pylon. The angular and curved geometries have no evident relationship. The granite blocks of the pier converge to form a pronounced central edge, yet the trapezoidal face of the diaphragm has no corresponding axial articulation. Higher up, the recessed pylon strip continues vertically, but its two edges again bear no relation to the centreline.

Visually, ​the bridge therefore fragments into three separate objects: the pier, the corrugated-web box girder and the pylon. They could instead have been developed within a coherent formal language. The width of the footway cantilever follows the minimum spatial requirements almost mechanically: the cycle lane has to deviate around the stay-cable anchorages and then again around the pylon. One might describe the resulting movement as playful, but a straight alignment would be considerably more elegant. This could be achieved either by accepting some additional material and maintaining constant-width cantilevers, or by reconsidering the structural arrangement more fundamentally.

​The client’s brief required a two-way cycle track on both the northern and southern cantilevers. This is difficult to justify, particularly when the stated rationale was to serve local workers cycling to the Paks II development. Naturally, two parallel bidirectional cycle tracks exist neither before nor after the bridge — one might perhaps expect such an arrangement in the Netherlands — yet cyclists are nevertheless directed onto both bridge footways. In planning terms, the requirement is plainly irrational and should have been challenged.

A more realistic arrangement would have provided one traffic lane in each direction and a wider pavement, accommodating a bidirectional cycle track and pedestrians, whether on the north or south side. All traffic could then have passed between the pylons. The cycle route could remain completely straight, while the pylon could be resolved as a more visually continuous object. Stay cables could be anchored close to the deck edges with only minimal cantilevering. Moving the pylons towards the outer edges would also permit them to incline transversely away from the bridge axis, visually widening the currently constricted interior space and establishing a stronger formal relationship with the inclined webs of the box girder.

​The ​night-time illumination of Robinson Bridge (2023), ​together with several carefully composed photographs, is undeniably striking. I shall discuss the bridge in detail in Section 7; here I shall restrict myself as far as possible to its detailing.

Distance flatters this bridge. At close range it is surprisingly characterless, with few details that might encourage anyone to spend time there. In the terminology introduced earlier, it is primarily a ‘path’, or an expression of ‘continuity’: for pedestrians it offers very little experiential value. The parapets are extraordinarily massive, presumably because they were required to resist substantial impact loads from golf carts. The central dividing strip further reinforces the impression that the bridge was designed principally to serve the athletics stadium rather than to embody a human-centred approach.

A brief digression is necessary here to mention another structure: the pedestrian and cycle bridge on Népfürdő Street beside the Duna Aréna. Márton Bede has observed on the Borízű Hang podcast that footbridges seem to be built in Budapest only when associated with a sporting event. Such circumstances repeatedly have negative consequences for long-term user experience. The Népfürdő Street bridge was conceived primarily to serve parking areas beyond the Rákos Stream during the 2017 World Aquatics Championships and to function as an emergency escape route. Consequently, its almost six-metre-wide deck could not be subdivided: no columns could be placed on it, and no change in level could separate future pedestrians from cyclists. A sporting event lasting only a few weeks thus determined the principal requirements of a bridge intended to remain in service for a century. I understand that the client provides the funding, but it would be refreshing if long-term common sense occasionally prevailed over short-term thinking.

R​eturning to Robinson Bridge: during broadcasts of the 2023 World Athletics Championships, carefully framed images of the stadium and bridge were repeatedly shown, and the structure served the golf-cart traffic between the warm-up areas and the stadium perfectly. Yet this represented only about two weeks of the bridge’s life. For the remaining century, a bridge conceived more explicitly around human experience would be far more valuable. The stay cables connect to tubular edge girders outside the parapets, where the floodlights illuminating the pylon are also mounted. The lighting columns are inclined and square in cross-section; unfortunately, their design changes immediately before and after the bridge. The pylon crown tapers with convincing proportion. The reinforced-concrete anchorage blocks for the backstays also have clearly defined contours aligned with the tangents of the outer cables. These details are technically accomplished, but they contribute little to the bridge as a lived human experience.

6.7 ​​Structural elegance

​As ​noted earlier, the preceding framework adopted a primarily structural perspective in which the human being remained only implicitly present. Billington’s three E’s — efficiency, economy and elegance — provide perhaps the clearest formulation of structural elegance in engineering: a structure should be materially efficient, economically viable and aesthetically expressive at the same time. To exaggerate only slightly, in an ideal bridge virtually every kilogram of material contributes to carrying forces. Working within this structural paradigm, the finest designers can achieve an almost perfect degree of structural elegance; from a human-centred perspective, however, this alone is not sufficient.

​Structural ​elegance is inseparable from structural evolution. Structural evolution, in turn, is closely connected with material efficiency and with advances in computational methods and materials science. The direction of development is persistent: in many fields, hierarchical structural systems — trusses, for example — are gradually giving way to continuous-surface structures whose stiffness derives increasingly from geometry. Aircraft design provides a useful analogy because its technological evolution has proceeded much faster than that of bridge engineering. When the Wright Flyer ​first flew for a few seconds in December 1903, it was essentially a hierarchical timber truss covered with fabric and stabilised by wires. By contrast, the Concorde, which first flew in March 1969, was a supersonic aircraft with a self-supporting metallic monocoque structure capable of travelling at twice the speed of sound. And, incidentally, 1969 was also the year in which Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.

I do not intend to rehearse the entire history of bridge engineering here. It is sufficient to observe that hierarchical structures have accompanied us for a very long time, while advances in materials science are likely to make continuous-surface bridge structures — including those made from fibre-reinforced composites — increasingly common. Rather than proceeding chronologically, I shall go directly to the central question and use the work of several prominent designers to examine how far each has responded to this structural evolution, and to what extent the balance has shifted from ‘skeletal’, hierarchical systems towards geometrically stiff continuous structures.

​I ​have referred to Xavier Font several times. His structures are consistently hierarchical: the main girders — whether trusses or box sections — remain clearly differentiated from cross-diaphragms, crossheads and piers. A rigorous structural hierarchy is maintained throughout; Pont de Callús (2017) ​is a particularly clear example. The same disciplined order can be found in Feichtinger’s bridges, where every structural component is explicitly defined and carefully shaped. Passerelle Mantes–la–Jolie (2019), ​for instance, is a curved steel box-girder bridge with outrigger plates supporting a timber deck. Mimram’s bridges are similarly hierarchical. One need only consider Passerelle Léopold–Sédar–Senghor (1999), ​where the Vierendeel arches, V-shaped supports and the longitudinal-and-transverse girder system carrying the deck form an exceptionally legible structural order.

​Most designers still work within hierarchical systems, although there are important exceptions in which geometric stiffness makes continuous surfaces possible. In many cases the transition goes no further than perforating solid plate girders that simultaneously serve as parapets, but more progressive examples also exist, including the thin-walled structures developed by Schlaich Bergermann Partner and Steg Trumpf (2018). ​In U-shaped plate structures that behave essentially as two-girder beam bridges, the lower flanges of the main girders merge directly into the deck plate, while external ribs stabilise the thin plates against buckling. Examples include Somers Town Bridge (2017) by Moxon Architects, Abbey–Chesterton Footbridge (2021) by Knight Architects, and Annie Vande Wielebrug (2024) by Ney&Partners. 

​Laurent Ney’s bridges perhaps offer the most convincing illustration of structural elegance and of an attempt to move beyond hierarchical systems through geometric stiffness. I referred to X-bracing in the preceding section. Connecting two bars with bolts or rivets is a long-established, effective and inexpensive solution, but such joints inevitably require maintenance. At Briandsbrug in Ingelmunster (2020), by contrast, the X-shaped element was cut from a single steel plate, with flat bars welded along the plate edges associated with the obtuse angles to form T-shaped stiffening ribs.

When parapets also function as main girders, perforation offers a particularly effective solution because the girder web can be formed from a single thin plate. CNC laser cutting makes it possible to cut almost any lattice-like structure or pattern into the plate, producing an element that is visually distinctive while remaining structurally efficient. Examples include the  movable bridge at Stalhille (2004) ​and Loopbrug Centner in Verviers (2006). In the latter, the upper edge of the web plate is folded to provide geometric stiffness, allowing the fold itself to act as the top flange.

Antwerp terminal bridge (2020) ​represents a transition towards fully spatial plate structures. It is a closed, tube-like plate structure with a pentagonal cross-section, its side surfaces articulated by Vierendeel-like perforations. Another Antwerp bridge, Parkbrug Spoor Noord (2016), ​is a tied-arch bridge whose distinctive feature is that it is fabricated entirely from plates: there are no conventional closed box sections. The deck plate is stiffened from below by transverse ribs. The arch itself is a thin steel plate whose stiffness is generated by folded plate edges; these connect directly to the uniquely patterned perforated side plates that replace conventional hangers. 

​Among the open spatial systems is Lichtenlijn–brug (2009) in Knokke–Heist, a curved pedestrian and cycle bridge whose overall profile evokes a suspension bridge. Here again, the structure is composed almost entirely of plates; even the Y-shaped pylons are assembled from T-shaped plate ribs. Tension plates replacing conventional suspension cables merge into the U-shaped stiffening girder without angular discontinuities. The concrete deck slab acts compositely with the curved steel plate structure through shear studs.

Passerelle Poissy​, currently under development, is likewise conceived entirely from folded plate elements. The longitudinal edges of the deck are stiffened by two planes inclined at approximately 45 degrees, positioned either below or above the deck plane depending on the span to be bridged. Where these inclined web plates rise above deck level, their free edges require stiffening, most practically achieved through a 90-degree fold. The webs may also be perforated, as at Parkbrug Spoor Noord and Steg Trumpf. Formally, the most distinctive feature is that in side elevation each edge reads as a continuous, uninterrupted strip.

​T​he formal language of Annie Vande Wielebrug (2024) in Ghent ​is based on similar plate-stiffening principles, but its final structural form emerged from an extensive optimisation process. The aim was to span 78 metres with an exceptionally shallow structural depth, which required a hybrid between a shallow tied arch and a Vierendeel girder. This bridge too is formed entirely from plate elements: its ‘legs’ are T-shaped plate ribs, the arches are narrow plate strips, the thin deck plate is stiffened below by transverse ribs, and the inclined webs behave as Vierendeel girders with teardrop-shaped openings, stiffened externally by ribs. The transverse stiffeners form a continuous system extending from one arch to the other.

Ney & Partners’ portfolio contains a markedly higher proportion of continuous-surface steel bridges than that of almost any other practice. The firm employs geometric stiffness and structural topology with unusual consistency and coherence. Box-section girders characteristic of hierarchical systems are not casually mixed with continuous plate surfaces; flat steel ribs appear instead either as plate stiffeners or, where they replace skeletal members, as T-shaped ribs. This disciplined separation has generated a clear design language and a recognisable architectural identity that distinguishes the practice from its peers.

Research–based ​design provides a genuine competitive advantage and enables structures of extraordinary slenderness and formal clarity. At Ney & Partners, the combination of structural elegance and structural evolution has become something close to a signature, particularly in the field of continuous-surface steel structures, which remain comparatively uncommon in the work of other designers.

​It ​is important to recognise that the desire for ever more slender structures will continue to grow even as achieving such slenderness becomes increasingly demanding. We are now moving beyond the domain in which established ‘rules of thumb’ are sufficient. Developing new rules will require extensive calculation, research and optimisation. Until these new principles become established and the specialised knowledge required to apply them becomes more widespread, a certain degree of confusion is inevitable. Expectations for slenderness will rise, while relatively few designers will be able to meet them with genuine structural logic and elegance. We should therefore expect to encounter genuinely ‘next-generation’ structures, structures that merely ‘look next-generation while remaining previous-generation’ in their structural conception, and, of course, many structures that remain wholly ‘previous-generation’.

I ​see a parallel with the Sydney Opera House, discussed earlier. Utzon envisioned the roof as a thin-shell structure, but did not initially recognise that the geometry he had imagined was incompatible with shell theory. The realised structural solution could scarcely have moved further from the original structural idea. Put simply, if someone lacks the relevant knowledge — in Utzon’s case, shell theory — he should be cautious about creating a form that gives the impression of embodying that knowledge. To an expert eye — Nervi’s, Torroja’s or Candela’s, for example — the resulting structure reveals the discrepancy: beams ultimately replaced the intended shell action, while structural elegance and structural philosophy were subordinated at enormous cost in material efficiency and economy. A ‘false appearance’ is not the same thing as a deliberately created perceptual illusion. In Utzon’s defence, he was an architect primarily concerned with form rather than a bridge engineer responsible simultaneously for form and structural behaviour. In bridge design, however, competence in both is expected. Great caution is therefore required when elements that have become another designer’s signature are copied — or, to put it more gently, ‘adopted’ — without adopting the structural thinking that made them meaningful.

​​Continuous surfaces based on geometric stiffness now make extraordinarily slender bridges possible, but appearances must not be confused with structural principles. A continuous plate surface cannot logically be stiffened by introducing closed box-section members belonging to a different, hierarchical structural family without changing the nature of the system. If we aspire to slender, restrained and elegant structural elements while falling back on familiar components from hierarchical systems, the result may imitate the appearance of a continuous-surface structure without achieving its structural elegance or material efficiency. More precisely, such a structure is not necessarily ‘false’ or deceptive; it has simply reverted to a hierarchical structural system.

There are still few recent examples because the phenomenon itself is new, but the new pedestrian and cycle bridge over the M7 motorway near Velence (2026)​ belongs, in my view, to this category of structures that ‘look next-generation’. Formally and structurally, it combines features of Annie Vande Wielebrug (2024) and River Thames Footbridge (2018). ​The Belgian bridge is a continuous-surface structure whose stiffness derives from geometry; the British bridge is a classical hierarchical system. The specific steel consumption of Annie Vande Wielebrug ​is approximately 30 per cent lower than that of the M7 pedestrian bridge. ​The visual similarity of their dominant inclined web plates is difficult to deny — the Hungarian solution is almost a replica — yet in terms of structural philosophy and structural evolution, continuous-surface vs. hierarchical, the two bridges represent fundamentally different levels of development.