Casting Aspersions: Debating Iron Ornament in New York's East River Bridges

In numerous histories of architectural modernism, the suspension bridge has served as an admired example of the unity of structural form and functional purpose to which the broader movement aspired. During the Industrial Revolution, bridges as engineering often preceded buildings as architecture in their adoption of innovative techniques and materials, as architects seemed particularlytradition-bound. This oft-repeated narrative often culminates with twentieth-century American suspension bridges such as the George Washington Bridge (1927–31) in New York and the Golden Gate Bridge (1933–37) in San Francisco. Their massive structures in unadorned steel affirmed in many minds that the “engineer’s aesthetic” was triumphant. In contrast, predecessors in lesser grades of metal, most notably iron, or less compelling structures such as trusses, were simply, as David Steinman and Ruth Watson say, “a necessary period of apprenticeship.” ¹ Even worse were steel structures with ornament in iron.