CENTERFOLD

center fold

1

2 3

1222 technicians, fabricators, and riggers led by Steve Messam

328 340 YARDS OF FABRIC

LINEAR FEET OF ROPE SPIKES

4 5

1. Part of the year-long process of sketches and mock-ups for Bridged, a temporary installation by British artist Steve Messam that ran above the River Skell at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Park in North Yorkshire, U.K., included this CAD rendering. 2. Inspired by the concept of an architectural folly, even though the work functioned as a bridge, Messam had hundreds of yards of fire-coated scarlet polyester cut and sewn into a spiked skin that was testfit over its corresponding weight-bearing structure at Stage One, the engineering firm that fabricated the structure’s steel elements. 3. Technicians on-site at the river worked with a forklift to fit the skin

over the structure. 4. After the bridge was pieced together, it was crane-lifted and swung 90 degrees onto steel grill footings on each side of the river. 5. Polypropylene rope and elastic shock cord laced into 244 brass eyelets on the skin’s underside helped the installation withstand strong rains and wind gusts.

landmark achievement

A contemporary bridge by Steve Messam enlivened an 18th-century National Trust Heritage Site in northern England

1 2

3

1. On view from July to November 2021, Bridged welcomed some 500,000 visitors, who climbed up its birch plywood steps using handrails of brushed stainless steel. 2. Sited near a Georgian iron bridge formerly on the grounds, this one was 49 feet long and 30 high, and installation took five days. 3. Bridged is part of “These Passing Things,” Messam’s threepiece series that included Spiked (see Intervention, page 175) on the 800-acre Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Park, a combined UNESCO World Heritage Site.

centerfold