Footbridge in Town. The Structure suspended between the Spirit of Place and the Spirit of Time

The paper discusses an important issue of designing footbridge structures located in urban areas. They can give their location individual characteristics, with a favourable psychological and social impact. Especially a pedestrian bridge may serve as an element of new cultural values. It may give an individual character- genius loci- to an otherwise rather plain location. In the article there are presented well-known examples from the history such as the residential bridge over the River Thames in London and the Ponte Vecchio on the Arno River in Florence. They are set against modern footbridges such as the New Millennium Plaza in Graz, EXPO'08-Bridge Pavilion in Zaragoza and designs of multifunctional bridges for pedestrians. They indicate the direction of future development of this kind of engineering objects in a city. New tools for designing together with digital technology have transferred the work of bridge designing to a higher level of space and material arrangement. The paper describes processes through which ecology, culture, technology and building are united to create an area of complex relations. Thus new effects of strong impact are brought to life, which results in a change of perception of the interrelations between Man and Nature and Culture.