Photos by John Moss
unless otherwise credited
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New
& Modern Bridges in Manchester
Merchant's
Bridge
Catalan
Square, Castlefield, Manchester
A
dramatic curving white steel footbridge which crosses the Bridgewater
Canal at Castlefield Basin, Merchants Bridge was designed by Whitby
Bird Limited (www.whitbybird.com) and the steeIwork contractor was
Watson Steel.
Completed
in 1996, this torsion structure was selected for a Millennium Product
Award amid fierce competition, and connects the Barça Cafe
in Catalan Square in Castlefield and the Quay Bar on the other bank.
The sweeping dynamic curve of this structure is a product of the computer
age, and its white paintwork contrasts dramatically with the red and
dark blue brickwork of Castlefield's older railway viaducts and canal
wharfages all around it. It is a fitting centrepiece for the renewal
of the Castlefield area of the City of Manchester, and offers the
best of 20th century design and engineering while complementing the
seven established bridges at the site which cover 200 years of history.
Trinity
Bridge
St
Mary's Parsonage, Salford
Designed
by the Spanish engineer Doctor Santiago Calatrava and completed in
1995, Trinity Bridge marks another major inner city regeneration,
this time over the River Irwell, which has always marked the invisible
border between the Cities of Salford and Manchester.
The whole structure
rests on one single 40 foot pylon - a kind of tent pole - leaned over
at a rakish angle, from which the suspending tension cables hang down
to suspend the footbridge deck beneath. Its sculptural appearance
and white paintwork inject a striking elegance in an area that has
long awaited such a development. This area was a dark, dank, long
neglected back end to the city, the such a new development has resurrected
the area, especially with the ongoing construction of the new Lowry
Hotel on the Salford bank of the river. Also on this bank at the end
of the bridge is a substantial riverside piazza with gardens and benches
offering a welcoming pleasant recreational area for surrounding business
workers. This was a joint project between Salford City Council and
Salford Pheonix, and was formally opened by the Lord Mayors of Salford
and Manchester, symbolising a new and important link between the two
cities.
Millennium
Lifting Footbridge
Photo © courtesy
of Andrew C Theokas Salford
Quays
Opposite the Lowry Art Gallery/Centre,
this remarkable footbridge, linking Salford to Trafford across the
Quays, was designed by W Middleton of Parkman Limited and the main
engineering contractors were Christiani and Neilsen; it was completed
in 2000 - hence the 'Millennium' Bridge.
It crosses
the Manchester Ship canal near its terminus at the old Manchester
Docks, and conveys foot passengers over to Wharfside Road, where the
new Imperial War Museum North
(by Daniel Libeskind) was opened in July 2002. Its four giant piers
each winch the road deck high into the air to provide adequate clearance
for large ships to pass beneath into the old Dock area and the redeveloped
Lowry Designer Outlet shopping centre.
Hulme
Arch Bridge
Stretford
Road, Hulme, Manchester 13
This
dramatic road bridge was designed by Chris Wilkinson Architects, completed
in 1990 and engineered by Ove Arup & Partners. Hulme Arch Bridge
was one of Manchester's first new bridges of modern times, created
to span the busy Princess Road/Princess Parkway arterial road south
of the city centre on its way to Wythenshawe, the M60 and M56 Motorways
and Manchester Airport. It stands about 1 mile due south of the city
centre.
It has a single
span arch which rises almost 30 yards above the carriageway and spans
50 metres in a diagonal formation. Spiralled steel cables suspend
the road deck from the arch.
In the past few decades, Hulme had become a rather run-down and somewhat
controversial district of Manchester - first for the wholesale demolition
of its 19th century slum dwellings, then in the 1960s for the construction
of huge monolithic concrete high rise tenements which became known
as "Fort Hulme". All kinds of social and economic problems
ensued, and it had gained a rising crime-based reputation. Hulme was
top go through a second regeneration as the 30 year old concrete structures
were removed in the early 1990s. This fine bridge in many ways typifies
the corporation's aspiration to remove the stigma that the area had
come to represent, and to replace it with a new, inspirational, elegant
and optimistic edifice on the main approach to Hulme.
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