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ARCHITECTURE. A golden bridge has been opened in Stockholm. The king was there. It’s no surprise that bridges turn heads. “Bridges are more important than houses, brighter than temples,” he writes. Ivo Andric in “The Bridge over the Drina”, “because they are intended for more people; they are owned by all and equal to all.” Bridges are the highest circle of infrastructure. Where roundabouts and tunnels quietly wear down, bridges are the center of attention.
On Monday morning I bike over the golden bridge. Two swans pass over the traffic, the wings sing, you can imagine how the weight and lightness have been combined into something third, an intricate construction that has wings.
Bridges are promises, a bridge is a concrete cross-border act. Bridges can thus be the perfect intersection between an infrastructure whose job it is to solve everyday life and something that magically takes a leap and reformulates entire cities. A bridge over Sundsvallsfjärden, Västerbron – “in heavenly peace” as Monica Z sing – or an Öresund bridge.
The Golden Bridge is a compromise with form.
Considered in that company, the golden bridge is a great disappointment. It is a very wide road whose edges are covered with gold. The Golden Bridge loves everyone well but loves no one. It is a large area where everyone – cars, buses, bicycles, pedestrians – should have their place.
Infrastructure takes us through everyday life, but it also distributes space. The Golden Bridge is a compromise between the 20th century automobile and another urban life that is now emerging and demanding space.
You’ll be able to get from one point to another, but where cities like Copenhagen find solutions for bicycle bridges that gracefully swing over the water, everything here is packed into a single wide, heavy road lined with traffic lights. It is more of a cover than a bridge. The golden cap.
Where is the water, where is the air under the wings? If Slussen were rebuilt, how could one forget where it is being built? Beauty must also be demanded from infrastructure, perhaps especially from bridges. Construction, the art of engineering organizes the bridge, but architecture must find ways to translate this into everyday movements. An infrastructure that lifts us above the water, a moment of freedom, the sound of wings on a Monday in October.
Dan Hallemar is a reviewer on Expressen’s culture page. He also directs the podcast “The City”.
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