Three bridges, a thought
Jan. 17th, 2014 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithThe quote from the Australian Heritage Database that interested me was:
The bridge was naturally a focus for the noted ornamental and picturesque quality of Richmond, its vernacular character drawing on centuries of precedents in England and Europe, sharply contrasting with the crisp urbanity of the Ross Bridge or the machine-age precision of the Red (brick) Bridge at Campbell Town.
Don't really think "crisp urbanity" is the way to describe the bridge at Ross. Urbanity maybe. Crisp suggests a smoothness, or straight lines. Certainly a lack of decorative details. But appropriate adjectives aside, there is a point in there. You can look at the first bridge as looking back, drawing on its design from its creators' past. Whereas the other two are more a reflection of the time they were built. Maybe they're all a reflection of the time they were built in. A decade is a long time, and the societies that built them were rather different. Now that's an idea to pursue: bridges as a reflection of the society that constructed them. Although that does mean knowing something, and thinking about, that context.
The bridge was naturally a focus for the noted ornamental and picturesque quality of Richmond, its vernacular character drawing on centuries of precedents in England and Europe, sharply contrasting with the crisp urbanity of the Ross Bridge or the machine-age precision of the Red (brick) Bridge at Campbell Town.
Don't really think "crisp urbanity" is the way to describe the bridge at Ross. Urbanity maybe. Crisp suggests a smoothness, or straight lines. Certainly a lack of decorative details. But appropriate adjectives aside, there is a point in there. You can look at the first bridge as looking back, drawing on its design from its creators' past. Whereas the other two are more a reflection of the time they were built. Maybe they're all a reflection of the time they were built in. A decade is a long time, and the societies that built them were rather different. Now that's an idea to pursue: bridges as a reflection of the society that constructed them. Although that does mean knowing something, and thinking about, that context.
