The Bambuco Bridge was a temporary outdoor

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

in the form of a

simple suspension bridge A simple suspension bridge (also rope bridge, swing bridge (in New Zealand), suspended bridge, hanging bridge and catenary bridge) is a primitive type of bridge in which the deck of the bridge lies on two parallel load-bearing cables that ar ...

spanning the River Tyne,

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, made entirely from bamboo wood. The

public art Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...

was designed and built for the ''SummerTyne'' festival, part of the

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initiative.

History

The 'bridge' was actually a sculpture and could not be used for human or vehicular transport. The sculpture opened for its three-day run at 10:00 on 18 July 2008, and closed on 20 July; the opening coincided with the start of the ten-day SummerTyne festival. There was a light show at 21:00 on 18 July to officially mark the occasion. After the three-day period, the bridge was dismantled in late July. Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead commissioned the Australia-based firm Bambuco to create the bridge sculpture from 20 tonnes (in 800 pieces) of bamboo in 2008, the 80th anniversary of the construction of the Tyne Bridge. The sculpture's construction started in late June 2008. It was located between the Tyne Bridge and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and spanned across the river, at a height of . The sculpture—which had its legs next to on the Gateshead bank and the law courts on the Newcastle bank—was also at a slight angle across the river. The founder of Bambuco, Simon Barley had the initial idea of a bamboo bridge over the Tyne, but died in 2007 before the project could be undertaken; Bambuco toyed with calling this bridge the ''Bridge of Si's'', a play on Venice's Bridge of Sighs.

Image gallery

Image:Bambuco Bridge 2.jpg, The Gateshead tower of the sculpture Image:Bambuco Bridge 3.jpg, The Newcastle tower of the sculpture Image:Bambuco Bridge 4.jpg, The sculpture with the Tyne Bridge in the background

History

Image gallery

References

External links