Brooklyn Bridge, New York, USA

(images via: Momeld, NY Daily News and Wallpaper HD)

No worthy discussion of amazing bridges can ignore the grand-daddy of them all, New York’s Brooklyn Bridge. The 5,989 ft (1825 m) structure took 13 years to build, opening to great fanfare in 1883. For 20 years it reigned as the longest suspension bridge in the world.

(image via: Currier & Ives via Wikipedia)

The Brooklyn Bridge was designed to be 6 times stronger than it needed to be. Even so, the public had doubts as to the viability of the bridge. Just one week after it opened for vehicular and pedestrian traffic, a rumor spread that the bridge was about to collapse: the resulting stampede caused 12 deaths. On May 17th, 1884, famous showman and circus owner P.T. Barnum put the rumors to rest once and for all by leading a procession of 21 elephants across the bridge.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Washington, USA

(images via: UW Library and Something Shiny Disorder)

Today’s big bridges are engineered with aeronautical principles in mind – if you think about it, the long deck of a bridge looks somewhat like a wing and in certain conditions acts like one too! That’s today; yesterday is another story best told by the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Opened on July 1st, 1940, the mile-long suspension bridge quickly garnered the name “Galloping gertie” due to the way the bridge deck oscillated in windy weather.

(image via: UW Library)

On November 7th, just over 4 months from its opening, winds of 42 mph (67 kph) affected the bridge to such a degree that two cars in the midst of crossing were abandoned. Shortly afterward, Galloping Gertie shook herself to pieces and in the process, shook up the way future suspension bridges were designed and constructed.

(image via: Roberta Wagner)

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was rebuilt in 1950 and the original span was doubled with the completion of a nearly identical structure in 2007 – one serves eastbound traffic, the other westbound. Though the areas winds have remained constant, both bridges have held up well.

Ponte Octavio Frias de Oliveira, São Paulo, Brazil

(image via: Wikipedia)

A stunning sight for the eyes, especially when lit up at night, the Ponte Octavio Frias de Oliveira in São Paulo, Brazil is the world’s first x-shaped cable stayed bridge with two crossed lanes. The 5,200 ft (1,600 m) bridge spans the Pinheiros River and was opened in May of 2008. The design of the Octavio Frias de Oliveira uses a single concrete mast 450 ft (138 m) tall to support two curved decks that cross at the bridge’s midpoint.

(images via: Skyscraper City)

Each December, LED lights are set up on the bridge’s cables and a computer program is used to create a wide variety of colors and patterns. One might think the massive light show would be distracting to drivers but like most modern wonders, familiarity lessens the impact.

Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo, Japan

(images via: Irene Franseda and Japan-Ireland Travel)

Standing out from Tokyo’s brilliant nighttime neon glow isn’t easy but the Rainbow Bridge accomplishes it with ease. Spanning Tokyo Bay from the Shibaura Pier to Odaiba, the 1,903 ft (580 m) suspension bridge was completed in 1993 and its name was chosen by the public. Oh, the Statue of Liberty? Not to worry, it’s just a replica!

(image via: Stu Hicks)

The Rainbow Bridge’s towers look white in daylight – the better to blend in with Tokyo’s dizzying skyline. When the sun goes down, however, a lighting system on the bridge switches on and bathes the bridge in rainbow colors. Wasteful? Not at all: the system is powered by solar energy absorbed during daylight hours.

Beipanjiang River Railroad Bridge, Guizhou, China

(images via: SINA and Wayfaring)

The Beipanjiang River Railroad Bridge in Guizhou, China, ranks with the world’s longest arch bridges but stands out due to its spectacular scenic beauty. The bridge, which opened in 2001, connects two mountains over a gorge 918 ft (280 m) deep. The bridge is a vital part of the Guizhou-Shuibai Railway Project and since completion, has boosted commercial activity and incomes in what has historically been one of China’s poorest regions.

Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Newcastle, UK

(images via: Dvice, Paulie Woll and Bugbog)

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is often called the “Blinking Eye Bridge” due to its unusual method of operation. Located in Newcastle, the bridge serves pedestrian and non-motorized traffic moving from the tilt bridge spanning the River Tyne in England between Quays arts quarter to the south and the Quayside of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the north. This beautiful “tilt bridge” was officially opened in May of 2002 and is 410 ft (126 m) long. Due to its smallish size and method of operation, the entire structure was set in place in one piece by a massive Asian Hercules II floating crane.

Here’s a short (13 seconds) video that shows the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in action:

Gateshead Millennium Bridge, via da8iwr

Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge, Brasilia, Brazil

(image via: Guilherme Kardel)

The Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge displays an appealing, modernistic design that complements that of Brazil’s master-planned capital, Brasilia. The bridge is considered to be an Asymmetric Arch Bridge with Suspended Deck, and it spans Lake Paranoá with a total length of 3,900 ft (1,200 m).

(image via: Miguel Netto)

The bridge was designed by Alexandre Chan (architect) and Mário Vila Verde (), and is named to commemorate former president Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira. It was Kubitschek’s vision of a city of the future that sparked the creation of Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city, in the late 1950s. The Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge features three asymmetrical steel arches, each 200 ft (61 m) tall. Diagonal steel cables interlace to support the bridge, which is fully accessible to pedestrians, cyclists and skaters.

Alamillo Bridge, Seville, Spain

(images via: Bing, Photographers Direct and Getty Images)

Built for practical and aesthetic reasons for Expo 92, the “Puente del Alamillo” is a strikingly beautiful cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge that only has one pylon. Resembling in many ways a gigantic sundial, the bridge’s main pylon soars 465 ft (142 m) into the sky while supporting the 656 ft (200 m) long roadway with 13 pairs of cables.

(images via: Bridgeworld and Xinzhou)

The Alamillo Bridge provides a vital transport link across the Guadalquivir River from the Spanish city of Seville to La Cartuja island, where Expo 92 was held. Since then, the bridge has become a landmark visible from most points in Seville and has come to symbolize the city’s promising future.

Hangzhou Bay Bridge, Shanghai, China

(images via: Capetown China Consulate and China Assistor)

At 22 miles (35.673 km) in length, the Hangzhou Bay Bridge is the the longest ocean-crossing bridge in the world. The bridge, which opened for public use in May of 2007, reduces travel times from the Yangtse River Delta area around Shanghai to the port city of Ningbo from 4 hours to a mere 2.5 hours.

(images via: World Interesting Facts)

Some facets of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge are still under construction, most notably a 107,650 sq ft (10,000 sq m) service center which will occupy an artificial island built at the bridge’s midpoint. In order to avoid obstructing ocean currents, the island will be built on a platform resting on piers that will in turn rest on bedrock at the bottom of Hangzhou Bay.

Millau Viaduct, Millau, France

(images via: Great Buildings)

The Millau Viaduct (“le Viaduc de Millau”, in French) is not a sight those prone to vertigo or gephyrophobia (fear of bridges) will easily take in. The bridge, designed by Norman Foster (architect) and Michel Virlogeux (structural engineer), spans the River Tarn valley near the medieval town of Millau in southern France. The designers specially incorporated a sweeping curve into the layout of the bridge so that drivers crossing it would get a good view of the picture-postcard perfect town.

(image via: Kera)

At 1,125 ft (343 m) from its base to the tip of its tallest mast, the Millau Viaduct ranks as the world’s tallest vehicular bridge. To put that into perspective, the bridge is just a few feet taller than the Eiffel Tower and is only 121 ft (37 m) shorter than New York’s Empire State Building. Drivers plying the route from Paris to Montpellier will cross the Millau Viaduct, which cost a whopping 400 million euros and which opened on December 14th, 2004.

(image via: Patrick Smith Photography)

Bridges – before the Internet they were the best ways for people to make connections. Judging from these 10 amazing examples, they’ll likely retain that important function today, tomorrow and for countless years to come.

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All it takes is a crawling woman in a hairy suit, a bunch of jumping men with televisions on their heads or a guy projecting his private parts onto public buildings to turn urban settings into surreal theatrical stages. Like guerilla action, performance art is a kind of “culture-jamming”, a deliberate interruption of daily life – and it certainly causes people to snap out of their little bubbles and take notice of their surroundings.

Marlene Hairy Crawling and Bathing Performance

(images via: vargas.org.uk)

Imagine walking down the street and suddenly noticing something that looks like a nightmarish combination of Chewbacca and Cousin It crawling at your feet. A 2005 performance art project in Vienna called “Marlene Hairy or In My Bathtub I am the Captain” was all that and creepier, because if you followed it, the crawling progressed to bathing. Artist Marlene Haring led about fifty onlookers across town to her home, then went into her bathroom and shut the door, which bore a sign reading “If you want to talk with me, you have to bathe with me.” Several people got into the bath.

Penis Projector

(image via: metro)

Is performance artist Jaime del Val overcompensating for some perceived shortcoming, or just really into phallic shadow art? Both and neither, according to him. Del Val, who walks the streets of Madrid projecting gigantic images of his penis onto urban surfaces, says buildings are “organs of power”. He also states that he’s seeking to promote himself as a “pangender cyborg” in protest against homophobia, surveillance, control and consumer society.

Public Wrestling Challenge

(image via: artdaily.org)

Violence is good. Or at least, that seems to be the message artist Anthony Schrag is sending out as he challenges the public to take their anger out on him for a performance art piece. Schrag believes that violence is too often considered undesirable when at times, it can be cathartic. He has built his career on using the human body as a tool of communication.

“I’m no professional, and there is certainly a sense of danger in letting strangers do what they will with my skinny little body, but that is what makes the project interesting: The trust and sense of reality between two people that only know each other as opponents. If I show contenders that I trust them, it is usually reciprocated – and there’s a referee on hand in case things get too rough!”

Creepy Japanese Crawling Robot

It’s a bizarre scene: a nurse pulling down the pants of an aging Japanese businessman, who’s crawling down an Australia sidewalk. Only, the ‘man’ is actually a robot, meant to symbolize the Asian economic crash and Japan’s rigid “salaryman” culture, and the ‘nurse’ is performance artist Momoyo Torimitsu.

SWARMUSIC Guerilla Street Performance

It’s the LA art scene – is anything surprising? Six men in weird masks blaring unsettling music from amplifiers strapped to their chests barely get a reaction in this town.  A strange bit of guerrilla performance art called SWARMUSIC took place in the midst of a November 2009 downtown Los Angeles Art Walk. Each of the performers walked a planned route, and each of their amplifiers was playing a portion of a song. As the performers wove in and out of the crowd, the “song” faded in and out.

Guitar-Playing Birds

The rhythm of daily life can be chaotic… especially when you allow wild creatures to play instruments. French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot set up a bunch of instruments in a walk-through aviary for a performance art installation at The Curve in London, allowing a flock of zebra finches to make their own special music. The installation will be live from February 27th, 2010 to May 23rd 2010.

Attack of the Inflatable Artist

What else is there to do when a giant inflatable sculpture is running toward you at full-speed, but haul ass in the other direction? Pittsburg, Kansas performance artist Jimmy Kuehnle says he just wants to shake people out of their zombie-like routines, make them smile and “change their way of thinking in a small way.” Their reactions range from the expected avoidance to fascination to cursing.

Underwater Stripper

(images via: weirduniverse.net)

In 1949, performance art wasn’t all that common – and people weren’t yet completely hypnotized by the boob tube. So it’s easy to see why the spectacle of underwater stripping would draw a crowd, like the routine done by one “Divena” in New Orleans. But apparently, Divena’s fellow strippers weren’t too happy about the attention she was getting. The caption under the bottom photo, from LIFE Magazine, reads “Stripper Evangeline Sylvas angrily breaks a water tank being used by a fellow stripper—a disruption that was not a planned part of the act.”

Street with a View

(image via: street with a view)

Google Street View gets a lot more interesting on one particular Pittsburg block thanks to an organized performance art campaign called Street with a View. Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley gather neighborhood residents on Sampsonia Way to act out parades, marathons, band practices and other scenes – all for the enjoyment of virtual tourists.

The Walking Tree Man

Nothing grabs attention in the streets quite like a 12-foot walking tree. Performance artist Cliff Spenger aims to bring a little nature to urban environments and inspire people to reconnect with the natural world.

Trash Mind / Tri Tue Rac

Vietnamese artists Le Van Son and Le Nguyen Manh teamed up with Danish artist Christian Falsnaes for a project called “Trash Mind / Tri Tue Rac”, which involved jumping around in reflective vests with televisions on their heads. Maybe they’re trying to say that TV trashes our minds, or maybe they just like to shock the hell out of random people on the streets of Hanoi. Either way, it’s entertaining.

Johan Lorbeer’s Defiance of Gravity

(images via: johan lorbeer)

Wait, is that guy floating? It sure seems like it, when artist Johan Lorbeer takes his installations “Proletarian Mural” and “Tarzan” to the streets. Lorbeer gazes serenely out in space while hovering a dozen or more feet in the air, casually leaning his arm against a building. Onlookers gather and stare in wonder, trying to figure out exactly how he can pull off such an illusion (hint: the supporting arm is fake).

Giant Liverpool Spider

(image via: the telegraph)

Anyone with a fear of spiders would have been well-advised to stay away from Liverpool in September of 2008, when an outrageously large spider appeared on the side of a downtown building. This work of street theater came at an unusually large cost and scale – the £250,000 spider measured over 65 feet across and was operated by 12 people strapped to its frame, who coordinated its movements.

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Gone are the days when a slow-loading Flash intro gave websites cool points, but failed to serve a real purpose. Flash is now an integral element of some of the most visually stimulating, engaging websites on the ‘net, allowing users to be active participants in the content of the site. Animations, games, virtual exploration and dazzling transition effects make these 15 Flash websites stand out as creative, interesting and fun.

Mauricio Guimaraes

When you arrive at illustrator and web designer Mauricio Guimaraes’ website, you’re in for an interactive journey across a strange and fantastical landscape featuring pencils, pen nibs, artist palettes and more. Fly across the land with your mouse and click on the mountain/head (whose eyes move along with your cursor) to read about Guimaraes, the bundle of writing instruments for his portfolio or the big pile of telecommunications equipment to contact the artist.

Wonderwall

The portfolio of interior design firm Wonderwall almost seems like a living being when you’re moving your mouse across it; it responds astonishingly fluid movement and little sound effects that sound like drips of water. And while it may seem as if such a design would eclipse the portfolio itself, in this case it incites the viewer to stay and peruse and play much longer than they would on a traditional portfolio website.

National Grid Floe

Improve your carbon footprint, or the baby polar bear gets it. That’s basically the gist of London-based utility company National Grid’s website, though it’s actually fun to navigate the site and get a reaction out of the bears. Make friends with a bear cub, name it, and as you answer environmental impact quiz questions correctly, you get to play with it and increase its health.

Get the Glass

For most kids, when cookies are out of the equation, drinking a glass of milk is more of a chore than a treat. But the Got Milk? campaign is drawing kids in with a Flash-based interactive flash board game on its website that’s surprisingly sophisticated. The aim is to “briefly put your daily morals aside” and help a family of milk-craving fugitives break into an island fort to get the last glass of milk.

Waterlife

A documentary called WaterLife tells “the story of the last great supply of fresh drinking water on earth”: the Great Lakes. With a soothing color scheme, plenty of animation, 3D effects and the opportunity to interact, this website serves as a strong companion to the film.

Dojo SF

The Dojo SF intro page slowly unfolds to reveal a strange but spellbinding jumble of arcane imagery, while the individual pages use seamless transitions and scrolling to offer quick and easy access to all of the site’s important info.

The Eco Zoo

With stunning Papervision effects and a really fun, interactive flash interface, it’s no wonder the Eco Zoo website won “FWA Site of the Year” in 2009. The designer, Junichi Nakazawa of ENJIN Inc, says “The Eco Zoo is our attempt at creating communication that is easily and enjoyable understood by people of all generations and nationalities, while pushing the envelope of online creative expression.”

Falcon’s Treehouse

Falcon’s Treehouse is a creative services firm that designs and produces what they call “themed experiences”, so it’s only fitting that their own website is an experience unto itself that unfolds as you interact with it. The more you play with the site, the more strange new landscapes begin to reveal themselves – night turns into day, patterns appear, blurry images are sharpened.

Record Tripping

It starts with a scratch of a record, and gets more complex – and fun – from there. The Bell Brothers’ interactive browser game ‘Record Tripping’ turns your computer mouse into a turntable, inciting you to use your mouse’s scroll function to for a series of challenges that also involve Alice in Wonderland, The Gorillaz, Death Cab for Cutie and Weezer. It’s not quite as strange as it sounds, but fun to play.

Breathe Architecture

The Breathe Architecture website doesn’t do anything wild, but sometimes, simplicity can be so refreshing – especially when there are so many Flash websites out there that are cluttered with unnecessary fluff. In fact, for a Flash site, this is downright minimalist, with a design that’s easy to navigate, intuitive and ultra-responsive.

Hobnox Audiotool

On the other end of the spectrum – in a good way – is the Hobnox Audiotool website, a browser-based Flash audio production tool that allows you to wire together various types of effects to create music in real time, in your own little virtual studio. Laymans Reviews calls it “one of the most productive ways of wasting time on the web”.

DVEIN 2009

Barcelona-based motion and interactive studio DVEIN, responsible for the title sequences in a number of movies and television projects like Spiderman 3, displays their work in an eye-catching wheel of images. Once clicked, many of those images are animated – and from there, a video opens to display the work in full.

Help the Honeybees

Honeybee populations around the world are disappearing at an alarming rate, and Haagen-Dazs is letting everyone know with their program Help the Honeybees. Their interactive Flash website allows you to take your very own honeybee on a journey through a buzzing field full of pollen-packed plants to learn more about the plight of bees.

Edwin Murat Ganter

Illustrator and web designer Edwin Murat Ganter shows off his skills using flash images of his work scrolling across a television screen.  Nothing stands as a truer sense of a web designer’s work than his own website, and this one is creative and functional.

Monoface

“Simpler is better.” That’s what advertising agency Mono is trying to get across with their awesome flash website that doesn’t do much more than allow users to create bizarre faces from disparate parts. But get sucked in trying to come up with the funniest combinations (there are 759,375 possibilities), and you’ll get the message.

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Outdoor advertising is all around us – on billboards, benches and even stairs. So it was only a matter of time before the ads took to the streets themselves in the form of stunning 3D chalk drawings, paint, stickers and even “reverse graffiti” which cleans messages onto dirty pavement. These 14 urban street ads sometimes blur the line between guerilla art and guerilla marketing, drawing in crowds and using their respective environments in clever and creative ways.

Water is Life Painted Street Ad

(image via: guerilla promos)

The town of Drachten in the Netherlands got an extreme makeover in 2008 when artist Henk Hofstra painted a kilometer-long strip of the main road a pale blue color. The striking shade is meant to give citizens of the town an idea of what life was like in Drachten back when this road was a canal. They’ll have to get used to the concept, because Drachten is in the process of reverting back to life on a waterway.

Folgers Manhole Ad

(image via: gothamist)

When you see a steaming manhole in the streets of New York City, you’re probably reminded of the hot, smelly sewer that lurks beneath. But Folgers decided to give it a new connotation with street sticker ads that transform manholes into hot, enticing cups of coffee. Though the effect is cool, Gothamist notes that the smell doesn’t exactly match up with the imagery.

Coca-Cola 3D Chalk Street Ad

(image via: julian beever)

One of the world’s best-known street chalk artists, Julian Beever, creates jaw-dropping drawings in the streets that look incredibly three-dimensional when viewed from a certain angle. This one, an ad for Coca-Cola, is among his most effective works.

Vodafone Retro Arcade Games Street Ad

(image via: marketing alternatif)

Vodafone made cult retro arcade games like Pac Man and Space Invaders available to play on their mobile phones, and publicized it with a series of attention-grabbing chalk street ads.

Guerilla Cardboard Street Ad

(image via: brainstorm brand)

Pedestrians in London were provided with a vivid reminder of the harsh realities of homelessness as a series of 30 cardboard ‘beds’ were placed around the city. Each piece of cardboard was inscribed with the message, “Loving the snow? Try sleeping in it. Help get homeless people out of the cold for good. Crisis.org.uk.”

Capitalism: A Love Story – Green Graffiti

(image via: green graffiti)

While the greenest form of graffiti may just be made from moss, there’s another way to send a message on the street without using toxic spray paint: pressure washing. Layers of urban grime can be sprayed away in a pattern using a stencil, for an environmentally friendly ad that fades away with time. This one by Amsterdam ad agency Green Graffiti promotes the Michael Moore documentary ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’.

IKEA 3D Chalk Street Ad

(image via: street advertising services)

An advertising firm called Street Advertising Services painted a series trompe l’oeil 3D street ads depicting IKEA products in a room, designed to draw in passersby as promotions staff passed out IKEA catalogs.

Eminem Ad Campaign – Green Graffiti

(image via: green graffiti)

Rapper Eminem got in on the green graffiti trend with an ad campaign for his album ‘Relapse’. Subtle and impermanent, this form of street marketing is a great example of using ambient space effectively.

Ballantine’s Whisky 3D Chalk Street Ad

(image via: moodie reports)

Chalk artist Julian Beever also created this street drawing of a bottle of Ballantine’s Scotch whisky “leaving an impression”.

Earth Hour – Green Graffiti

(image via: green graffiti)

To promote Earth Hour – a global event in which the power is turned off for an hour to raise awareness about climate change – with wasteful paper and toxic inks would be hypocritical to say the least. This approach, using the “green graffiti” pressure washing method, gets the message across in a way that fits the event perfectly.

Sewer Grate BBQ Street Ad

(image via: sandeep makam)

Like the Folgers manhole cover ad, this guerilla street ad takes advantage of visual associations, using sewer grates to advertise BBQ grills. It’s clever, but the effectiveness is questionable given that most people aren’t likely to look at a sewer grate and think, “Mmmm – barbecue!”

Reserved for Drunk Drivers Street Ad

(image via: advertolog)

The consequences of drinking and driving are vividly illustrated in this unconventional ad, featuring a parking space half on the sidewalk, marked with the words “Reserved for drunk drivers.”

Open Manhole Awareness Street Ad

(image via: adrants)

Manhole cover thefts have risen over the past few years as opportunists sell them for scrap metal, and it’s a big enough problem in China to merit an ad campaign warning of the dangers of missing covers. Serious injury could result from falling into one – perhaps serious enough to cause paralysis.

Canon S1 Guerilla Street Ad

(image via: the raw feed)

That’s quite a zoom. Canon advertised its S1 camera model in 2006 with this sticker street ad. Not only does the column provide the perfect shape for the lens, its base sticks up from street level just far enough to give the camera a slightly three-dimensional look.

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(image via: Julie_Berlin)

There are certain things that most of us take for granted – like well-lit streets. But leaving street lights blazing at all hours of the night, even in towns that don’t see much foot traffic, doesn’t always make ecological and financial sense. A handful of German towns are trying a rather unconventional solution – a program called Dial4Light, which requires users to activate lights with their mobile phones.

The small town of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz first decided to turn off the lights altogether as a cost cutting measure, but residents weren’t too happy about having no choice but to stumble down pitch black streets. Enter the wonders of modern technology. With the Dial4Light program, pedestrians can activate the streetlights with a simple phone call.

(image via: Dial4Light)

Streetlights in each participating town are grouped into zones, each of which have an assigned six-digit code. To turn on the lights in that zone for a short duration (usually 15 minutes), users simply dial the Dial4Light number and enter the code.

“The technology is unique, easy to use, and you do not really need to install new equipment,” creator Dieter Grote, an advertising exec, told the BBC.

“The principle is that you use street lighting the same way you use your lights at home. That you switch on the light in the hallway when you get home, and switch it off when you get to the living room.”

(image via: The Star)

In most of the towns where the program has been implemented, users will pay no more than the cost of the phone call to illuminate their route. However, some towns have begun to charge for the energy used by the lights. Users of the program must also either know the codes for each zone ahead of time, or find the numbers posted on each streetlight within a given zone – a task made difficult by the absence of light. And without a cell phone, pedestrians are left in the dark.

Though the program has its drawbacks, and wouldn’t be suited for urban areas with lots of foot traffic, it certainly saves both energy and money. The rural town of Morgenröthe-Rautenkran, population 900, reportedly saves about $5300 per year. The slightly larger community of Dörentrup expects to save $14,000 annually.

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