Attention Spans | WSJ | Alexandra Wolfe

The Wall Street Journal devoted a half-page to three spans featured in Bridges. That’s some real estate!

Millau Viaduct, France, 2004 The Millau Viaduct touches the earth lightly, recalling the long French tradition of audacious structures, begun more than a century ago by Gustave Eiffel, who crossed a similar windy gorge in the Massif Central with an equally astonishing viaduct. Designed by Foster + Partners in association with an engineering group led by Michel Virlogeux, the Millau crossing is the tallest bridge in the world, with a deck so high that architect Norman Foster has compared driving over it to “flying a car.”

Laguna Garzón Bridge, Maldonado, Uruguay, 2015 Architect Rafael Viñoly designed the Laguna Garzón Bridge (2015) for a sensitive ecosystem in southern Uruguay. Its novel circular shape slows traffic, increases safety and reduces vehicle emissions. Below water, that equation is reversed: fewer support columns allow marine life to move more freely. Photo: © Román Viñoly

A monument of the Victorian age, the Forth Bridge over the Forth River in eastern Scotland was the first large-span bridge to be built entirely of steel. Once completed, it shattered all records for length, height, and the sheer volume of materials used. The earliest multi- span cantilever bridge, it is also one of the longest, with a total length of 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers).