October 26, 2002
Peace Bridge models
by Diane Christian
The Peace Bridge Expansion Project’s Collaborative Workshop #3 met Saturday, October 26th, 2002, in the Crystal Ridge Community Center in Crystal Beach, Ontario. For the first hour or so, project director Vincent "Jake" Lamb talked about the structure of the process now going on. For the last two hours, members of the audience asked the Peace Bridge Authority's design consultants questions, some of which they answered, some of which Lamb answered.
In the middle of all the talk there were pictures to look at: computer-generated designs for companion bridges and replacement bridges. For each bridge idea there were four computer-modeled views: north and south views from the Canadian and U.S. sides of the Niagara River. It was easy to see how the various bridges fit into their surroundings because there were no trucks in any of the images. The designs included the Public Bridge Authority's original twin span, some bridges suggested by engineers consulting for the Public Consensus Review Panel, and new bridge ideas proposed by the Expansion Project's design consultants: Christian Menn, the Figg Group, and Mojecki-Masters Buckland-Taylor.
Overall the designs are ugly. The images suggest concrete MacDonalds' arches, inverted goalposts, wishbones, tuning forks or aliens, or masses that are very bottom heavy.*
The only one I thought had any elegance was Christian Menn’s companion bridge (drawing #CC9), but it’s flat anduninspiring—just artful in making the existing bridge palatable. Like a wart, the Parker truss on the old bridge controls the face.
I thought Menn’s was the best of the replacement designs (#CR4), but it’s too spare and dull. It's the same bridge as companion #CC9 but without the old bridge behind it. His angular severity, which looks wonderful in European mountains, doesn’t work in our open flat spaces. Our landscape needs more life, curve and energy.
I think the old bridge should be replaced with a new more curving and bold bridge of the kind UB Architecture School dean Bruno Freschi and San Francisco bridge designer T.Y. Linsuggested five years ago, the design that got everybody excited in the first place about the possibility of doing something really inspiring at this river crossing.
*I assume that eventually the images of the bridge designs in the good-looking color brochure the Peace Bridge Expansion Project distributed at the October 26 meeting will go up on their web site (www://peacebridgex.com). If they do, the MacDonalds' arches are CR3 and SR2, the inverted goalposts CC2, the wishbones CR8, the tuning forks/aliens CC1, and the bottom heavy W1, XC1, XC2, FC2, CC6, CC7, CC8, CC9, CR2.
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