Structure: In Singapore, the futuristic “The Helix” is one of the city-state’s architectural beacons.
How does this story begin? Maybe with a tree trunk making its way across a raging stream? Or with a ditch that brings the precious water to early farmers? People’s architectural and structural engagement with water is several thousand years old. Since then, the constructions have become increasingly complex and impressive. The illustrated book “Maritime Monuments” by Sebastian Junge gives an impression of this.
The book, subtitled “Spectacular Architecture on the Water,” focuses on constructions related to infrastructure: in particular, it is about bridges of various construction methods. The examples range from the natural stone construction, which is more than 3,000 years old, over a stream bed in Greece, to the pedestrian bridge “The Helix” in Singapore, which opened in 2010 and whose steel elements form a spiral shape reminiscent of human DNA.
Bridges usually represent building over water, with the exception of trough bridges such as the Veluwemeer Aqueduct in the Netherlands, which carries ships over a road. But there is also building in, on, with and under the water as well as for the water. The diversity of perspectives reflects the fundamentally ambivalent relationship between the flowing and the solid, that dynamic relationship between the constantly changing water and the architecture and engineering construction designed for stability.