IRON AND THE BRIDGES OF NEW YORK

The bridges of New York are just beautiful, a vivid representation of the growth of iron as a building material ....and while I show you my pictures taken during my trip to New York in 2006 of several bridges found along the Hudson River, I'll give a little history to nourish your intellect...just a tiny bit not to bore you. What the hell, right! I'll give you IRON, the birth of steel reinforcement, of huge spans and of incredible buildings made glass and steel.

"With iron, an artificial building material appeared for the first time in history of architecture. It went through development whose tempo accelerated during the course of the century. This received its decesive impulse when it turned out that the locomotive, with which experiments had been made since the end of the twenties, could only be utilized on iron rails. The rail was the first unit of construction, the forerunner fo the girder. Iron was avoided for dwelling-houses, and made use of for arcades, exhibition halls, railway stations, buildings which served transitory purposes. Simultaneously the architectonic areas in which glass was employed were extended. But the social conditions for its increased use only came into being a hundred years later. In Scheerbart's 'Glasarchitektur' (1914) it still appeared in the context of a Utopia"

(Benjamin,Walter. Paris:Capital of The 19th Century. 1030)

Bridge along the Hudson River

Aerial View of New York

(Note: The famous Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883)

(Photos: Daphne Rosas)