In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture titled There's plenty of room at the bottom, which eventually altered the thinking of a whole generation of scientists by changing their focus to thinking "about the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale." Small is, of course, a relative concept and I'm not interested in venturing into physics and nanotechnologies. I want to talk about small scale in relation to landscape, more precisely about mountain footbridges.
I have been an admirer of Jürg Conzett's work for a long time but had never seen personally any of his bridges until very recently. The once on the Veia Traversina and on the Trutg dil Flem certainly live up to the highest expectations. The twelve kilometre trail between Zillis and Thusis is marked white-red-white (difficulty T3) and requires between five and six hours. It is a demanding hike with difference in altitude of +640 / -470 m, but the Pùnt da Suransuns, the Viamala Gorge and the Traversina Bridge are worth the effort.
Pùnt da Suransuns, Verein KulturRaum Viamala, Design and construction: Conzett, Bronzini, Gartmann AG, 1999
Photographs: Mariana Siracusa
Viamala Bridge, Graubünden
Department of Transportation, Design and construction: Christian Menn, 1966-67
Photograph: Mariana Siracusa
"The bridge was to be made from stone as a contrast to the timber structures of the Veia Traversina in the northern part of the Viamala Gorge. It was to be a material manifestation of the cultural divide between the north and south [...]." The bridge is exposed to salt-spray from the road above (A13): stainless steel and duplex steel were used to avoid corrosion. The stone slabs are joined by 60x3 mm aluminium strips, a substitute for mortar. The concrete abutments were poured with great precision. Note also the surface treatment of the eastern side. "The range of surface treatment for concrete has by no means been exhausted. For instance, concrete can be granulated for about the same cost as an exposed concrete formwork."
Viamala, 1895 ca., ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv / Photographer:
Unknown/ Ans_09194-FL
Viamala, 1925, ETH-Bibliothek Zürich,
Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz / Photographer: Walter Mittelholzer /
LBS_MH01-004439
The cliffs of the Viamala Gorge rise for three hundred meters and are only a few meters apart at the narrowest points. The waters of the Rhine rush in and produce a deafening sound. The Viamala Visitor Center building was designed by Iseppi/Kurath.
Second Traversina Bridge, Verein KulturRaum Viamala, Design and construction: Conzett, Bronzini, Gartmann AG, 1999-2005
Photographs: Mariana Siracusa
The Traversina bridge is an angled narrow walkway in the form of a long stair with a fairly wide substructure that prevents a direct view down into the ravine. It drops for twenty-two meters from the northern to the southern end. A diamond-truss system carries the loads up to the abutments rendering the bridge stiff to vibrations. The structural parts are made of splinter-free larch glulam beams, whereas the stair treads and railing are of weather-resistant heartwood fir. Cables, connections, cross girders and railing posts are all of galvanized steel. The cables terminate at the apex of concrete pylons which were poured monolithically together with the anchors. The inbuilt redundancy of the system facilitates the individual replacement of damaged elements over time.
The seven footbridges on the Trugt dil Flem in Flims are even smaller in scale. The trail - marked white-red-white (difficulty T3) - is thirteen kilometres long and requires around five hours. You can chose whether to proceed uphill to Naraus and take the cable back to Flims or the other way around. In any case the ever-changing view will keep you scrambling over the rocks. What you see - surprising small-scale natural scenes - will balance the fatigue.
The bridges grant access to private land and transform the landscape into an attraction.
This space is never quiet, neither visually nor acoustically. There are moments when both the place and the structures will disappears in sound. Along the trail you will realize that walking is not just movement but also experience. Also, space is a matter of distance from people: the scenes are unpopulated. You are alone or so it seems.
The landscape never looks the same coming and going, so turn around periodically.
Trugt dil Flem, Design and construction: Conzett, Bronzini, Gartmann AG, 2010-2012, Photographs: Mariana Siracusa
This unique Alpine landscape was shaped and staged by human interventions, and the bridges by Conzett are a constitutive part of it. "The appearance of such artful constructions in the midst of a massive mountain environment always involves an aspect of miniaturization. Something is pinned onto the mighty landscape, something that is intended as a rare jewel." It is important that we learn to preserve this man-made landscape.
Flimserstein, 1954, ETH-Bibliothek Zürich,
Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz / Photograph: Werner Friedli /
LBS_H1-018187 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Flims, 1971 , ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung
Luftbild Schweiz / Photograph: Swissair Photo AG / LBS_P1-715529 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Flimserstein, 1960, ETH-Bibliothek
Zürich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz / Photograph: Werner Friedli /
LBS_H1-022380 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Further reading
Chiorino, Mario Alberto, ed. Jürg Conzett. Architettura nelle opere d'ingegneria. Torino: Allemandi, 2007.
Conzett, Jürg. "Notes on Dealing with Construction". In Marcel Meili, Markus Peter 1987-2008. Zurich: Scheidegger & Speiss, 2008.
Conzett, Jürg. "A Commentary onStructural Aspects of the Community Halls in Duvin and Vrin". In Bettina Schlorhaufer, ed. Cul duffel e l'aura dado. Gion A. Caminada. Luzern: Quart Verlag, 2008.
Dosch, Leza. Kunst und Landschaft in Graubünden. Bilder und Bauten seit 1780. Zürich: Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 2001.
Landscape and Structure: a Personal inventory of Jürg Conzett. Zurich: Scheidegger & Speiss, 2010.
Mezzalira, Luca and Michel Carlana. Jürg Conzett, Gianfranco Bronzini, Patrick Gartmann: Forms of Structure. Milano: Electa, 2011.
Mostafavi, Mohsen, ed. Structure as Space. Engineering and Architecture in the Works of Jürg Conzett and His Partners. London: AA Publications, 2006.
Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. Mountain Gloom, Mountain Glory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1959.
Saussure, Horace-Bénédict de. Voyage dans les Alpes. Neuchâtel, 1796.
Schama, Simon. Landscape and Memory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust. A History of Walking. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
Wilfried Dechau. Trugt dil Flem: Seven Bridges by Jürg Conzett. Zurich: Scheidegger & Speiss, 2013.
