桥梁专业外文翻译--现代桥梁美学的发展空间

中文3877字

Expressing space force system and inheriting humanism —The Space For Modern Bridge Aesthetics Development

Pan Fang

Abstract The harmony of mechanics and aesthetics is the logical basis for the existence and the development of bridge aesthetics. When force-bearing properties of space force system are woven into bridge design, the spirits of sculpture are instilled into bridge structures. And the intervention of the tradition of humanities converts bridges into spatial-temporal sequences that embody local conventional character and recur to bridges’ genius loci. The combination of both provides many alternatives of the development of modern bridge aesthetics.

Keywords space force system the tradition of humanities bridge aesthetics

“We think our civilization near its meridian,

but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star.”

----Emerson, Ralph Waldo 1. Present status

Nowadays, there are two mainstreams in bridges development. One is the trend of extra long-span bridges, and another is the urbanization of middle-span or small-span bridges. These two trends exactly correspond to two features of bridges.

The first one is the cultural function of bridge serving as a symbol of critic or national character additional to its conventional function to support loads .The giant exposed elements of bridges inherently embody human’s strength, courage and will to conquer the river. And this is especially true in extra long-span bridges .Another obvious character of bridge is that it enables people to occupy the space owned by river. As a result ,on one hand, human attaches to the space where he originally belongs to, on the other hand he can move back and forth between banks. That makes him feel simultaneously interior and exterior, openness, freedom and protection. This

experience of passengers comes through the stream of complex interplay of structure itself and its surroundings.

Up to now, experience accumulated on space force systems guarantees the credibility of such complex structures as cable-arch structures and bridges subjected to gale. And advanced computer-aided design facilitates visualization of three-dimensional model of the structure under discussion. Technological restrains is loosening. At the same time, bridge aesthetics begin to thrive .Genius loci, namely, spirits of place, are desired, which are deeply rooted in the tradition of humanities. Different connects are well arranged to display a spatial-temporal sequences which arouse resonance of visitors.

The maturity of bridge design technique and the emphasis on humanism and tradition are prerequisites of progress of bridge aesthetics.

2. Potential space latent in space force system

2.1 Theoretical support

Admittedly, conventional procedures for bridge design have a deep influence on bridge aesthetics. Because the loads on bridges are more complex than that on buildings, in the concept design stage, architecture is involved much less. And before the introduction of computer-aided design software, almost all bridges were simplified into two-dimension structures in order to avoid the solution of large scale linear programming. Unfortunately, this artifice has its side-effect. It neglects bridge is a structure of three-dimension who has abundant expressive forces. Consequently, the similarity between different bridges and the stiffness in their appearance occur.

Then how to elicit the vigor inside bridges when we are liberated form calculation to some extent? Reverting to bridges’ original nature of a giant sculpture is an optimal choice. As a three-dimension structure, bridge demands designers not only mentally to visualize a complex form from all round itself, to identify its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight, to realize its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air, but also the accurate expression of the internal ways to transfer loads, where lies the difference between bridges and common sculptures. The critical step is weaving invisible load paths into the nature of bridge mold. The example below