Fundamental Flaws in the Appearance of Bridges

Many papers on bridge aesthetics design focus almost exclusively on the importance of certain visual qualities (i.e., harmony, unity, balance) as necessary distinguishing characteristics of beautiful bridges. Although each of these papers has considerable merit, their required brevity and limited focus provide only a superficial view of an effective bridge design process. Also, for the elucidation of aesthetic subject matter for bridge design novices, these papers appear to be inappropriate for several other reasons. First, they imply that a vague abstraction such as “beautiful” is a legitimate goal for a design effort. Second, the emphasis on a structure’s primary visual qualities mistakenly presumes that the complete silhouette of a highway bridge will generally be seen and evaluated by distant observers. Finally, these papers generally fail to mention fundamental flaws due to design, construction, and maintenance neglect and carelessness that can spoil the appearance of a bridge, even one that has been well designed in most other respects. These issues are discussed, and it is suggested that, instead of attempting to achieve beautiful bridges by a preoccupation with abstract visual qualities, a highway bridge designer’s attention should be devoted first and primarily to the avoidance or prevention of well-defined and easily recognizable bridge aesthetic flaws, many of which are described and discussed here. Thereafter, designers’ attention can be devoted to the adjustment of a bridge’s structural characteristics and visible aspects to satisfy both functional requirements and cost limitations and to simultaneously improve a structure’s visual qualities to the extent that some observers may be provoked to exclaim “beautiful” when they first view a designer’s work.