Bridges presentation
Long,
elegant, elliptical arches, piers half their former widths, special machinery for construction, and the
introduction of an architectural motif used until the 1930s, the open parapet with turned balusters,
completed this outstanding bridge. Widened in the 1950s, its original appearance was carefully
maintained. Another masterpiece of the French Classical style is the Pont de Bordeaux of nineteen
arches, more than 1640ft (500m), completed in 1822.
Figure 5 Pontypridd Bridge (1756) over the Taff in South Wales
(UK), had to be rebuilt several times until its builder, William
Edwards, got the correct rise-to-span ratio to ensure that the 140ft
(43m) arch would not collapse after removal of the falsework.
Shunsuke Baba, photographer
In the United Kingdom, a young Swiss engineer, Charles Labelye, was building the English
equivalent of Perronet's bridges. On his first bridge, Westminster (1750) over the Thames, he
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