54 C O N T E X T 1 7 1 : M A R C H 2 0 2 2 By the time the second world war brought this era to a close, private car ownership had begun to have an impact. Photography from the air re-adopted for a few years its wartime role of target identification, for which it had first been employed in the ‘Great War’. In 1946, with a further boom in peacetime, a caravan park had even appeared near Blackpool. Alan Brodie is a recognised scholar of the seaside and its architecture, both in UK and abroad. In his text and well-laid-out, full-page blackand-white images he takes us on a journey in words and photos from 1920 to 1953, when holidays by the sea were at their peak.The current volume takes its place alongside earlier books on motoring and railways, all of which have been reviewed in these pages, and their titles and much else about surveys from the air may be found on Historic England websites. The seaside book will appeal to students of urban form and lovers of grand Edwardian hotels and the superb piers that stand (or stood) near them, as well as to collectors of illustrated books on architecture and fans of aerial photography. It also provides valuable evidence about sites and structures whose plans might appear on the Ordnance Survey but whose elevations, roof forms and surroundings such as gardens can be more fully appreciated from the air.These same air-shots demonstrate vividly how urban development has been governed by rocks, cliffs, estuaries or flat marshland at the places where the land meets the sea. The volume contains a short but useful list of books, including those on individual resorts (such as Blackpool andWeymouth) as an aid to compiling statements and appraisals for districts or surviving un-listed heritage. The victims of the bad times, no longer existing, are also recorded here from their inter-war heyday. Graham Tite, gardener, cook and essayist Firmness, commodity, delight The Architecture of British Bridges Ronald Yee, 2021, 224 pages, 280 colour and black-and-white illustrations, ISBN 978 1 785007 94 1, hardback, £20 Bridges are rarely thought of as architecture, yet they well represent the three famous principles of good design formulated by the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius in his book De Architectura for firmitas, utilitas and venustas (firmness, commodity and delight). Bridges are also one of the few building types where form and structure are given equal weight.This demands creative teamwork and the negation of professional boundaries that can be a problem in the design of buildings. The author of The Architecture of British Bridges, RonaldYee, is an internationally renowned bridge architect, whose work includes the Pont Vasco de Gama in Lisbon and the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge in Ireland. He comes from a dynasty of bridge designers. Yee begins with an explanation in non-technical language of the principles of bridge design and the various structural methods used to support them. A central argument is how construction and aesthetics have been combined to achieve good design, and that, bearing in mind that alternative solutions may be technically feasible for most bridging projects, appearance should always be a deciding factor. The major part of the book is a gazetteer of significant bridges. This is subdivided into chapters based on basic construction types, each of which is explained in an opening section. The first chapter deals with stone bridges, from the primitive Tarr Steps clapper bridge on Exmoor, through the medieval period to the later arched masonry bridges such as Thomas Harrison’s elegant Grosvenor Bridge in Chester of 1832, which remained the longest single-span arch in the world for 30 years. Timber bridges have an even longer timescale, from Roman military bridges up to the present day. Brick bridges began in the 15th century, reaching their climax in the railway age with the construction of mighty viaducts. By this time iron had become an alternative material, before it was developed as the pre-eminent bridge construction choice. Iron, in turn was replaced by steel, which is capable of being used in several different forms: box girders, steelarched structures, suspension and cable-stayed bridges, all of which remain viable options. At the same time reinforced concrete has offered an alternative freedom of expression, although its aesthetic potential has not always been as successfully achieved. The book ends with shorter chapters on movable bridges, bridge parapet design and bridge lighting, the last of which offers opportunities for heritage presentation as seen in the London Illuminated River project. On the way the reader will learn about the effect of high winds on suspension bridges, sometimes with tragic results; the ingenuity of movable bridge designers; and the predisposition of lateral movement due to ‘synchronous lateral excitation’ caused by pedestrians
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