University

Welcome to the online edition of Bridging the Bay: Bridging the Campus.

...At a time when the Bay Area’s bridges are being analyzed and new structures are being planned, it is important to recognize the diversity and depth of the research collections that exist on the Berkeley campus. The exhibit includes books, documents, architectural drawings and renderings, blueprints, artifacts, maps, and photographs. The bridges documented include the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Carquinez Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, the Antioch Bridge, and the Dumbarton Bridge. The exhibit also contains documents detailing Bay Area bridge projects that were seriously considered, but were never built.

Paul Philippe Cret, architect, was born in Lyons, France, on October 23, 1876, the son of Paul Adolphe and Anna Caroline (Durand) Cret. He attended a Lycee in Bourg and studied architecture at the L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyons and the L'Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, where he graduated in 1903. At the Paris school he was awarded the Rougevin Prize and the Grand Medal of Emulation, both in recognition of his remarkable skill as a draftsman. In 1903 he was invited to teach architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained until his retirement in 1937.

Drury Blakeley Alexander (1924-), architectural educator, served as professor at the University of Texas School of Architecture and continues to serve the city through the Historic Landmarks Commission and the University as a champion of the preservation of the University's historic buildings, resident historian, and special friend to the Architecture and Planning Library. Creative works, correspondence, memoirs, printed material, minutes, maps, images, photographs, student work, slides, and artifacts, (1887-1995) created or collected by Drury Blakely Alexander, evidence his career in education and interests in architectural history and preservation.

Aware that control of the country's river systems would important to both sides in the Civil War, Eads proposed the U.S. government invest in the development of steam-powered, ironclad warships. Eads made his proposal before the war, but his idea was coolly received. When he was awarded a contract, he employed upwards of 4,000 men to build the U.S. ironclad armada that would prove decisive in Union efforts against Forts Henry and Donelson, at Memphis, Island No. 10, Vicksburg, and Mobile Bay. In a remarkable feat Eads turned out his first ironclad 45 days after he began production. The ironclad idea would be adopted by the Confederacy and both sides would improve on Eads' idea throughout the war. After the war Eads found a new project, the spanning of the Mississippi with a suitable bridge to carry everything from people to trains. The self-trained engineer proposed a triple-arch design fabricated from steel. Each span was roughly 500 hundred feet and rested on piers resting on bedrock some 100 feet beneath the river bottom. The building of the arches involved steel supplied by Andrew Carnegie's steel works. Eads required that the 18 inch diameter hollow tubes conform to a test strength of 60,000 pounds. Many times during construction steel was returned to be re-rolled so that it might meet Eads' exacting standards. Keeping the shipping lanes open was necessary during construction, so Eads designed a cantilever system to support the unjoined arches. A system of pulleys stretched over the piers and supported the arches. Eads was also innovative in that he employed a threaded iron plug to close the arches. He allowed five inches on each arch to be used for threading the plug and closing the distance between the arches. The Eads Bridge was the largest of its kind and quickly became world renowned.

In 1867 a convention for the improvements of the Mississippi and its tributaries met in St. Louis. Even at this early date the people were beginning to see vaguely that the Mississippi Valley was destined to be the ruling section of the country. Eads in his address to the convention showed that he foresaw it plainly. It was at this time he made clear his remarkable plans for the bridge. A little later in the same year the long-talked-of bridge at St. Louis was at last begun. The population of St. Louis at this time was about 100,000 inhabitants. The estimated cost of the bridge, $736,000, caused consternation among the city officials and there was some delay in the plans.

A gift of John F. Harbeson, the archive consists of Cret's student and professional work and is displayed on approximately four hundred and seventy-six sheets containing one or more drawings, photos, or prints per sheet. The archival holdings may be broadly divided into eighty-eight sheets of student work at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Lyon and Paris, fifty-three student and professional watercolors, thirteen sheets of bookplates, seals, medals and title pages, fifty-six sheets of competitions (thirty-two of various university designs), nine sheets of commercial work, one hundred and two of memorials, twenty-two sheets of government buildings, twelve residential designs, twenty-one sheets of bridge designs, five sheets of watercolors and ink sketches by Col. Oscar Lahalle (Cret's father-in-law), and one hundred and eleven sheets of varied design work.

The University Avenue Bridge, an impressive adaptation of modern classicism to a limestone-faced, concrete on steel double leaf bascule bridge, carries university Avenue across the Schuylkill River. Its sweeping monumental piers and towers with bridge operator's houses remain visible from many vantage points. This graceful span forms an integral part of its surrounding cityscape, and serves as a visual landmark along the Schuylkill River.

The University Avenue Bridge runs north/south across the Schuylkill River, and links University Avenue in West Philadelphia, with South 34th Street in the Grays Ferry section of South Philadelphia. The bridge which has a clear height of thirty feet, measures 536 feet in length, and 100 feet in width. Five lanes wide, it accommodates four lanes of traffic going in two directions. The bridge has a pedestrian walkway on either side.

Personal author:
Ellet, Charles, 1810-1862.

Title:
Report on a rail-way suspension bridge across the
Connecticut, at Middletown, with a proposal for its
construction, to a committee of the citizens of

This collection consists of display material with related notes and copies of records and papers brought together by Michael Shafe, Deputy Librarian, University Library, Dundee, for an exhibition held in the library, December/January, 1979-1980, to commemorate the centenary of the Tay Bridge Disaster and mark the career of Sir Thomas Bouch, engineer of the first Tay Bridge.

Lennox's arrival in New South Wales opened a new chapter in the bridge-building history of the colony. He built a series of stone bridges, some of which are still standing. In 1844 he moved to Melbourne, where he had charge of all roads, bridges, wharves and ferries, acted as advisory engineer to various government departments and built 53 bridges.
Career Highlights:
Born Ayr, Scotland. Arrived Sydney 1832; Sub-Inspector of Roads 1832-33; Superintendent of Bridges 1833-43; district surveyor to the Parramatta Council 1843-44; Superintendent of Bridges, Port Phillip District 1844-53. Built a number of stone bridges, including one on the main western road at Lapstone Hill, the Lansdowne Bridge on the main southern road near Liverpool, the Lennox Bridge over the Parramatta River and the first Prince's Bridge over the Yarra River in Melbourne.