Six Bridges : The Legacy of Othmar H. Ammann
"It is a crime to build an ugly bridge," said Othmar Ammann, and the first span he built as an independent engineer, New York's George Washington Bridge, was among the elegant bridges recounted in Henry Petroski's fineEngineers of Dreams(1995). This handsome album summarizes Ammann's career and exhibits 200 photographs and design drawings of his principal achievements: the GW Bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Rastorfer's text provides the political context (especially the muscle of public works czar Robert Moses) surrounding the creation of these distinctive elements of New York's skyline, but Rastorfer is more enthused about Ammann's management of these bridges' construction and his contribution to their unique engineering elements and overall aesthetic. The black-and-white images exalt the artistic aspects of the bridges, proclaiming their beauty and vitality to the life of the city, while commemorating their immigrant Swiss designer.Gilbert Taylor