Bridges: The science and art of the world's most inspiring structures

by David Blockley

The Brooklyn Bridge, London's Tower Bridge, Sydney's Harbour Bridge, San Francisco's Golden Gate--bridges can be breathtakingly monumental structures, magnificent works of art, and vital arteries that make life vastly easier.

In Bridges , eminent structural engineer David Blockley takes readers on a fascinating guided tour of bridge construction, ranging from the primitive rope bridges (now mainly found in adventure movies), to Roman aqueducts and the timber trestle railway bridges of the American West, to today's
modern marvels, such as the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, which has the largest span in the world. Blockley outlines the forces at work on a bridge--tension, compression, and shear--and the basic structural elements that combat these forces--beams, arches, trusses, and suspensions (or BATS). As he does so,
he explores some of the great bridges around the world, including such lesser-known masterpieces as the Forth Railway Bridge (featured in Alfred Hitchcock's The Thirty-Nine Steps ), and describes some spectacular failures, such as the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota or the famous failure of the
Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. For instance, Blockley discusses the London's Millennium Bridge--the blade of light across the Thames--which displayed an alarming wobble when opened. He explains that when people walk, they not only exert force directly forward, but also exert a lesser force to the
side, and the Millennium Bridge engineers did not consider this tiny lateral movement in their otherwise meticulous design. Amazingly enough, this minor omission caused a wobble severe enough to close the bridge for two years.

Bridge building is a magnificent example of the practical use of science. But as Blockley shows in this illuminating book, engineers must go beyond science, blending technical experience and creativity to build the spans that connect us all.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Architecture, Engineering

328 pages, Hardcover

First published February 25, 2010

About the author

David Blockley is an engineer and academic scientist. He has been Head of the Department of Civil Engineering and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol. He is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Arts.

Reviews

[Vic Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Blockley's "Bridges; the Science and Art of the World's Most Inspiring Structures" is a sort of primer. In it, Blockley attempts to lay out the "language" of bridges so those of us without engineering backgrounds can "read" how a bridge, any bridge, works. Beginning with the "letters," the most basic components of construction like sand for cement or carbon for steel, all the way up to the "novel" or completed bridge.
In doing so Blockley has a lot of information and ideas to impart. A part of that involves math. If you aren't really into math much, no worries. "Bridges" is completely readable without engaging in the math at all. While Blockley's writing is lively and concise it is also information dense. It took me quite a while to work through the 279 pages of text. I could only read for so long before I couldn't absorb any more.
In "Bridges" final section, Blockley expands his ideas about bridge building and the necessary components, including the human ones, to the world at large. But during the course of the book, Blockley remains ever the engineer. Find the problem, determine the best solution, and implement it.
Such is the history of bridge building from twisted ropes to modern metal and concrete wonders.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in modern bridge design and construction. Advances in materials and engineering feature prominently over other aspects, political, financial, social, etc. involved in building large, expensive structures.

[Katie Hoyt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really did like this book a lot. I am a student very seriously considering going into structural engineering and, while the math and science of the book was elementary, it was lively, well written, and had much interesting history. I greatly enjoyed reading it and I would highly recommend it. My ONLY issue with it was the last chapter. I found it both boring and confusing, as well as unnecessary. It put a damper (pardon the pun!) on an otherwise delightful experience.

[Jim D'Ambrosia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a slog. It's technical enough to be confusing, since the underlying math to show what the author is really trying to say isn't there. For understandable reasons, but still. On the plus side, I did learn a fair amount.

[Raoul Tomaselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 ⭐

Bought it in 2022 at Oxfam for curiosity (it looked nice).
Decided to read it in 2025 because I thought I would give it 3 stars or lower in order to make room in the bookshelf.
Read it, and actually enjoyed it.

It is full of interesting fun facts and simply explained difficult information.

[William Blair · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I thought it would be. There is actual engineering (with math, requiring algebra to understand) in this book. Despite that fact, it's not for civil engineering students: it's too elementary. I thought it would be more "entertaining" about the science and more expository about the art of bridges. But it was really neither. The author is clearly erudite, and writes well. Too bad he just doesn't have any clue about what to write. There is an odd theme throughout the book where he tries to bring in some oddly-metaphysical, philosophical mumbo-jumbo about "building bridges" between people and disciplines. All that he had to say about that could have been said in a page or two, and should have been limited to that. All in all, this book was not worth my time to slog through, but I did simply because I felt the author was capable of having something interesting and valuable to say. But, in the end, it was a fruitless exercise. All that I actually learned from this book could have been encapsulated on 20 or so pages. It also needed more pictures (not to mention less diagrams).

Surprisingly, the author mentions (on page 233) that he worked with Barry Turner, the author of a very well-respected, famous (in its circle) book "Man-Made Disasters" (which I have reviewed here). Turner's book was also hard to digest, but having learned of their association (for 15 years) and compared their writing style, I can now understand. Both of their books that I have now read are simply dense. Note that I am educated sufficiently to understand everything in both of their books. But this author has failed to make the subject interesting.

There is one, singular, informative (although not earth-shattering, and certainly not original) passage in the book, which I will quote here:

"The distinction between processes and products is useful but can be distinctly unhelpful if it causes a neglect of change. In the past, most bridge builders were commissioned only to design and build a bridge. The bridge was delivered, and nothing more. Not enough thought was given to long-term effects. There are even instances where designers weren't involved in the erection of their bridges. Maintenance and decommissioning wasn't even on their radar. The problem has been exacerbated by the highly fragmented nature of the modern construction industry brought on by the enormous increase in specialization. The overview that Telford, Brunel, and the Roeblings were able to maintain was, and still is, often lost. With no 'guiding mind', projects can lack 'joined-up' decision-making." [page 176:]

That (long-winded) thought is exactly like the one that was much more famously explained by Dr. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., in both of his books: The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 20th Anniversary Edition and The Design of Design. Brooks terms the concept "conceptual integrity" and offers several examples, both of designs that suffered from its lack and of others that benefited from its presence (such as the Reims Cathedral in Reims, France). The "guiding mind" of David Blockley is the "architect" or "designer" of Dr. Brooks, and "the maker" of Dorothy L. Sayers (The Mind of the Maker).

[Jim Vanderkerken · Rating 4 out of 5]

liked how it applies system theory to bridges. It describes them as connecting human structures.

[Isabella Falcigno · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought it would be a good idea to read this book since we are studying bridges in geometry and are suppose to create our own bridges with a design and everything. This book was terribly boring I have to stay and so difficult to read. The only good thing that I got out of this book was that it made a good source for my research in bridge class. This book explored how a bridge works and talks about multiple bridges in the US