13 March 2013

Most beautiful bridge in the world



There are times, when words mean nothing. In this post, there will be no data, date, paragraphs of law, engineering plans and documents. Only plenty of old photographs selected from fortepan.hu of the Erzsébet bridge in Budapest, most beautiful bridge in the world. 























In 1945. january 19th, the bridge was blown up by retreating german froces.













This was the story of the most beautiful bridge in the world, the Erzsébet (Elizabeth) bridge in Budapest (1903-1945).

The old Erzsébet Bridge used to be a chain bridge made of Hungarian steel, because at that time the domestic industry could not provide so good quality suspension cables for the award winning plan, which was not built for this reason.

The reconstructed bridge, which you may see in Budapest has nothing to do with the old one. The new plans were taken from West Germany, by Pál Sávoly. He studied the Mülheimer Brücke in Cologne (Köln), and built almost the same bridge from Swiss cable. It was finally opened to the public in 1964. november.

























On the two sides of the Gellért mountain once there stood a pair of bridges, wife and husband, Franz Josef and Elisabeth. In the II. World War both of them destroyed. The irony is that the downstream next Franz Josef bridge was rebuilt later retaining its original shape, but its name was changed to the plebeian name "Freedom", and Elizabeth his wife could retain her name, but the beauty of the original bridge was taken away from her forever.
 

4 comments:

  1. This is a lovely story in photographs! And the collection of photos is amazing!

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  2. I'm happy that the first comment ever on this blog was a positive one! :) Thank you!

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  3. I fell in love with my Serbian husband in Budapest and we kissed on this bridge in February of 2000. I'm so happy for these photos. This bridge will always be a special place for me.

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  4. Such a wonderful evocation of the glory days of the Elizabeth Bridge. I have never seen many of these photographs and thank you sincerely.

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