A Historical Geography of China by Yi-Fu Tuan

Author:Yi-Fu Tuan [Tuan, Yi-Fu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780202362007
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2008-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

The bridge

The bridge is often a conspicuous landmark in the flat, water-riddled plains of the lower Yangtze Valley and in South China. The visual prominence of the bridge in both the countryside and in the cities encourages statistical exaggeration. The most famous error is attributed perhaps unjustly, to Marco Polo in his highly enthusiastic description of Quinsai (Hang-chou), capital of the Southern Sung dynasty. He is supposed to have said: ' There is a story that it has 12,000 bridges between great and small, for the greater part of stone, though some are of wood.' A. C. Moule believes that an early copyist had missed a line, and that Polo probably said there were 100'great bridges in Hang-chou ~ enough, anyway, to impress a Venetian.1 No accurate survey exists on the number and style of bridges in China. According to Fugl-Meyer, in a book published in 1937, there are some i\ million of them. The density is twelve bridges per square mile in the intensively cultivated parts of the country; the highest, more than twenty per square mile, occurs - as we may expect - in the watery land of Chiang-su province. The hilly but densely settled Ssu-ch'uan basin has a remarkably high average density of ten bridges per square mile. An-hui, Shan-tung, and Hu-pei provinces are also richly peppered with these structures.2

The style of bridges shows geographical variation. In North and central China arch bridges are conspicuous. Most bridges of military or commercial importance that were built in the late Ming and Ch'ing dynasties were supported by arches. Masonry structures using huge stone slabs as beams (stone truss bridges) also exist but they appear to be relic forms of earlier times. The stone-truss style is widely used in numerous minor structures, such as decorative bridges in gardens and bridges that bestride the plethora of side canals in the Yangtze Valley, where the water is too shallow to allow the junks to enter, and hence high arches are not necessary. In subhumid China north of the Yangtze Valley, where horses or ox-drawn carts are frequently used for transportation, the approach to the arch bridges is usually level. In the lower Yangtze Valley, however, most bridges are built for pedestrians, donkeys and mules. They are commonly hump-backed. A steep flight of steps leads up to them on both sides, making them impassable for wheeled traffic. These humped structures with horseshoe or circular arches allow the passage of boats and at the same time form a highly visible and picturesque element of the flat landscape.

One of the most famous bridges in China is the flat-arched An-chi bridge of Chao-hsien in Ho-pei. It is a thing of beauty as well as a superb achievement in engineering. It has a long span of 122 feet 10 inches but a rise of only 23 feet from the abutments to the crown of the arch. In Europe such very flat arches of large span had to wait until about 1567, when Ammanati's bridge in Florence (span of 96 feet) was built.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.