pambo's Full Review: Ronald G. Knapp - Chinese Bridges: Living Architec...
China's long history and rich, diverse architectural tradition has produced many distinctive bridges, as seen in "Chinese Bridges: Living Architecture From China's Past."
Rather than providing just a mode of transportation, many of the bridges serve as guides to history, culture and religion.
The book reviews 21 bridges from Beijing in the north to Guangxi in the south; Sichuan province in the west to Shanghai in the east.
Feng shui, of course, has a role in bridge placement, as do other issues of available building material, structure, kinds of traffic and more.
There are also numerous wood block prints and some propaganda drawings of bridges showing heroic communist forces struggling forward to the next battle. More than 400 photos illustrate the bridges and their surroundings, some fitted tightly into village spaces, others in wide-open areas of mountains or flatland.
The book starts with an explanation of bridges, their structures and traditional building materials. Earlier bridges were usually made of timber, stone or twisted ropes of bamboo or vines, though other materials make appearances too. Most bridges are made up of abutments, piers and foundations, as well as the structure we tend to think of as the bridge--the beam, arch, suspension and truss styles.
Some of the styles of bridges shown in this book:
Step-on block bridges, a simple lineup of blocks across a shallow stream.
Suspension bridges, an old tradition in China. Many are visible in the mountains of southwestern China, using thin wires.
Beam bridges are often relatively simple, built of planks. But others are complex, and intricate. Records show some dating back to 200 BCE, and provided footing in rough terrain instead of being limited to covering water.
Floating bridges date back nearly 3,000 in China, tying together boats to form a floating bridge across the Wei He River. Other pontoon bridges have been used on the Yangzi and Yellow Rivers, and the book includes a photo of one such bridge in southern China in 1930, covered by bamboo mats to smooth foot traffic.
Cantilevered beam bridges date back to about 400 AD in China, using counterbalanced beams to strengthen spans. Some of the examples in southern China involve lining the bridge with pavilions.
Arch bridges are the homes of some fine artwork or become the center of artwork. A country scene, with mountains, boats and a pavilion atop an arched bridge are displayed in a temple in southern Anhui province; a painting at the Metropolitan Museum in New York shows scholars drinking in the woods, next to a small arched bridge.
Some older bridges have been revived in modern times. There is a Chinese saying, "Where there is a brdige, there is a temple; where there is a temple, there is a bridge" serves as a reminder of the centrality of bridges in some communities. And the more recent history of civil war appears, here, too. "Red Army bridges" built during the Long March between 1934 and 1935 as Mao's forces fled their enemies, covered deep gorges, rivers and rugged terrain.
In particular, the Luding Bridge, first built in the 18th Century, was the site of a key battle during the long March. Many of the planks of the bridge, high above the Dadu River, had apparently been stripped away, creating scenes of determined rebels charging uphill across the narrow bridge.
Many of the photos show bridges with intricate design, latticework, carvings, fencing and eaves, far fancier than most bridges we see in the West. They are works of art.
This is an insightful book likely to appeal to any fans of Chinese culture and architecture. When I went to China in the mid-1990s, I saw a handful of small wooden bridges, but most were of the more modern industrial looking styles. Too bad, these all look great.
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