In 2,000AD the Millennium Bridge opened.
Designed to be a footbridge across the Thames between old London and new London.
So people could walk between the St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tate Modern.
The footbridge was called “The Blade of Light”.
The vision came from one of Britain’s foremost sculptors: Sir Antony Caro.
The design from one of Britain’s foremost architects: Sir Norman
Foster.
The engineering came from one of Britain’s foremost engineering companies: the Arup Group.
The footbridge was absolutely beautiful to look at.
A perfect showcase for modern Britain.
There was one slight drawback.
You couldn’t walk on it.
Of course, this was something of a problem.
A footbridge that people couldn’t actually walk on.
What happened to the bridge was called “positive feedback”.
When people walked on it, it swayed slightly.
As it moved in one direction, everyone obviously moved in the opposite direction.
This increased the swaying like pushing a swing.
The bridge had to be shut immediately.
It was supposed to carry 5,000 people at a time.
It couldn’t handle a quarter of that.
It took two years and £5 million to fix it, before people were allowed to actually walk on it.
The greatest design brains in the country were given a footbridge to design and they couldn’t do it.
I think that’s the perfect metaphor for modern Britain.
All the massive brainpower involved in designing the bridge going through the checklist:
“Looks beautiful?” – “Check.”
“Amazingly modern?” – “Check.”
“Impressive list of names?” – “Check.”
“Innovative design?” – “Check.”
“Stylish use of materials?” – “Check”
“Okay for people to walk on?” – “What, er, hang on a minute, no, sorry we never got around to that part.”
You see the brief was for a footbridge that was trendy.
What happened was that the footbridge part got forgotten in the desire to be trendy.
All concentration was on the ‘trendy’ part.
The footbridge part was ignored.
And that’s exactly what’s happened to advertising.
What we have is acres of trendy advertising that doesn’t work.
Because everyone’s forgotten the job of advertising:
1) Who is it for?
2) Why should I buy it?
That’s how ordinary people think.
But we don’t do advertising for ordinary people.
People from Shoreditch do advertising for other people from Shoreditch.
And they’re not interested in anything so banal as the name of the product, or why you should buy it.
But they can design a beautiful bridge you can’t walk on.
Classic example of function following form.
Hi Dave, It seems we are not alone in the dodgy bridge stakes globally.
I came across this quick run-down of scary bridges
http://www.dangerousroads.org/2-uncategorised/4362-the-scariest-bridges-in-the-world.html
whilst looking for “The Shakkin Briggie” in Aberdeenshire across the River Dee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tw8P7ZgKtc
My Dad took me across it when I was a child, but alas it’s now in total disrepair.
Shame, it was such fun to walk across as a child.
Check out the Bridge in Japan that makes you feel like you’re taking off in a plane
or the one in Pakistan with a truck stuck on it.
The trouble with Adland is as you quite rightly point out
It’s the people from Shoreditch advertising to the people from Shoreditch.
It seems nobody else is invited, but as 99% of the population don’t care
what the people from Shoreditch do anyway, they don’t miss it at all.
Many people over here don’t watch TV any more.
They live online out of synch with each other.
If we take this further, and look at Bowlby’s attachment theory,
we are now living in a reverse media cosmos that I am going to name
“Detachment Theory”
Bowlby’s evolutionary theory of attachment suggests that children come
into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others,
because this will help them to survive. (Quote ‘Simple Psychology’)
My Detachment theory is this: Kev’s Detachment theory suggests that children enter
the world biologically pre-programmed to form REAL attachments with others, but
because of the worldwide web, they form UNREAL false and phoney attachments that
do not help them to survive. As they continue to become addicted, they become enveloped
in the fear that if they detach from the virtual world that they will cease to exist
as real living human organisms. Of course the opposite is the truth, but people are not living!
As Barry Smith once said to me: “This is not a dress rehearsal.” This is real life, and if we
don’t live it to the full, we are the losers.
Here is the future of intellect Dave:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q5IxfpEEok
Classic example of arse about tit if you ask me.
How about the bridge served its purpose for the person it was supposed to impress? In that, it looked good, but that person was never likely to use it? If so, job done.
If you get out of London there quite a few instances of architecture that serves no purpose other than ultimately to just look good for the person who paid for it. These are called “follies”.
I once caught a conversation between a Catholic and a Protestant discussing their faiths respective cathedrals in Liverpool. The Catholic said that they adopted a modern design so they could quickly have a place to worship. The Protestant’s counter argument was that yes their cathedral did take a long time to build but in doing so provided jobs for the locals for several hundred years.
Hi Nick, Interesting point about the bridges. I was discussing this with a couple of colleagues when I came across another Norman Foster Design:
The Millau Viaduct in France. One of the colleagues was from a construction company. He said he was fascinated at how a 7 single pillar construction was able to work in such a way. I believe the Millau Viaduct was constructed in 2004 and the Millennium Bridge in 2000. It made me think about that story where Ridley Scott was supposed to have used a TV commercial to sell his idea of a blockbuster film to Hollywood.