Along the Vltava River a few days back on the 2nd day out of Prague this bridge caught my attention. I think it is a pretty fine example of the creativity of bridge designers. It is only a bridge of modest size but is striking.
In the context of building roads, bridges can get pretty expensive and, with a few exceptions, bridges are almost strictly functional designs with only a minimum of additional cost allowed for the artistic flair. It is the hallmark of bridge designers to blend their creative and functional technical expertise to get an appealing bridge at low cost for the particular site. This bridge is in the Czech Republic with, I suspect, modest resources further adding to the need for low-cost design.
I further suspect putting a column on the cliff side was going to be expensive. This solution with its leaning tower and integrated bridge spanning the cycle path provided an integrated counter-weight of already needed materials to efficiently support the full weight of the bridge over the river from one side. Jára Cimrman would be pleased.
You see, there is more to that story of a few days back in Prague about Jara with his eye-catching inventions. Jara is a fictional character - a pedagogical device for the Czech people and its education system which I have not fully grasped. A quote from Wikipedia:
Czechs, their mentality and their hero
For many Czechs, Jára Cimrman is not only one of many ordinary funny characters. His status in Czech culture is much deeper and complex than it may seem at the first sight, especially for a foreigner. In the view of Czechs, the whole history of the Czech nation represents a struggle with expansive attempts of bigger nations who have always tried to dominate the Central European region and who have considered it their "sphere of interest".
No matter in which situation, Cimrman is always depicted as a determined fighter against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, despite the fact that his very name and origin themselves reflect the ethnically mixed nature of the Czech (and Austrian) population. This symbolizes not only a silent resistance of the Czech people against the Soviet occupation but against any form of oppression which have often taken place in the Czech lands.
Over centuries of military occupations and autocracies, the Czechs developed a mentality which allowed them to resist even the toughest opponents, not by force which they usually lacked, but rather by using their brain and tactics. Reinhard Heydrich, when instructing heads of his Prague’s gestapo, warned them that unlike the Poles or the Yugoslavs who are rigid and stubborn and who can be therefore broken by sufficient force, “Czechs are servile and flexible as sticks which first bend down and then whip back when least expected.”
One of the most used, cited, remembered and very well understood phrases in the Czech Republic is associated with Cimrman and we can find its origin in the movie Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping. Cimrman, as a teacher in the local school, gave this advice to a group of children standing in front of a pound (fence for cattle), wondering how to get over it. “Children, in your life you will have to face obstacles. Tyrš says: “Jump, climb, but never ever bend down” but I say: “You may bend down too, but then you must straighten up again!”
The self-image of bending down and then straightening up characterizes a wide-spread Czechs' view of the last two centuries of the Czech history.
I am indebted to the Czech woman who chatted to me at his exhibition - I did not see any explanatory notes about him there.
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