John Rennie The Elder - Bridges

Bridges

Over the next few years Rennie also attained a deserved reputation as a builder of bridges, combining stone with new cast-iron techniques to create previously unheard-of low, wide, elliptical arches, at Leeds Bridge, and in London at Waterloo Bridge (1811–1817), with its nine equal arches and perfectly flat roadway (thought to be influenced by Thomas Harrison's design of Skerton Bridge over the River Lune in Lancaster). His later efforts in this line also show that he was a skilful architect, endowed with a keen sense of beauty of design. Waterloo Bridge, London Bridge – built from his design, though not completed until 1831, after his death – and Southwark Bridge (1815–1819) best attest his skill. He also designed the Old Vauxhall Bridge.

Read more about this topic:  John Rennie The Elder

Famous quotes containing the word bridges:

    As night is withdrawn
    From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
    Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
    Welcome the dawn.
    —Robert Bridges (1844–1930)

    to-morrow it seem
    Like the empty words of a dream
    Remembered on waking.
    —Robert Bridges (1844–1930)

    ... this single span,
    Reaching for the world, as our lives do,
    As all lives do, reaching that we may give
    The best of what we are and hold as true:
    Always it is by bridges that we live.
    Philip Larkin (1922–1986)