I am told I fail to appreciate anything about engineering when I say that, despite this bridge’s faults, I prefer it to the Millennium Bridge. My point is that the latter is engineering before it is a passage for people; the Hungerford is flat, wider and more of a boulevard-bridge that seems to put people first (whatever the intentions of its designers). The Millennium may be prettier and more structurally daring and elegant, but I still prefer this bridge. So: damn your instrumental mind-set and abstracted aesthetic inclinations! In any case, I confess: the manner in which this structure appropriates the old railway bridge by grasping onto it is dear to my heart; a veritable symbol of London’s regenrative endeavours. Structurally, the new work straps itself onto the old like the beast in ‘Alien’ locked onto the face of an unlucky astronaut.
The proposal for the new bridge was rooted in an early ‘90’s consultancy about Waterloo Station, calling for improved access across the river. The problem was
that generations of Londoners had suffered a ludicrously uncomfortable pedestrian way strapped onto the northern side of the Hungerford Railway Bridge — a principal means of getting from Charing Cross to the Southbank cultural centre and to Waterloo. Years later, having dealt with an unexploded WWII bomb, the consequent delays and extra costs involved (requiring Mayor Livingstone to bail out the scheme), Londoners were able to enjoy a hugely improved bridge with two new pedestrian walkways strapped onto the old railway structure.
Bizarrely, the architects talk of the suspension structure as ‘angel’s wings’ and such like, but one has little need for this sort of promotional rationale now that the bridge is complete. The white steelwork of the new grabs a hold of the old Hungerford Bridge stanchions and sends tall suspension masts into the air on either side. What the river crossing pedestrian experiences is transformed: what was ugly has become a stroll across a (comparatively broad) river boulevard that comes complete with entrepreneurial street sellers quick to recognise the opportunities that other bridges fail to provide. Meanwhile, commuter trains rattle by.
And at night the lighting reveals it as a thing of beauty. Principally for urbanistic rather than tectonic reasons, I much prefer it to the Millennium Bridge.
Ironically the project suffered many problems and the architect’s scheme ended as a design & build exercise from which they resigned, leaving all sorts of contention regarding value engineering, details, crosslinks between the walkways, end terminations, etc. Sad, but the reality of the thing is sufficient.