DB

If you’re going to build a bridge, make sure that you can see what is around, under, and above it.

If it doesn’t look like a skeleton, then it is wrong. If it doesn’t look like a wonder, then it is wrong. If it does not mystify those who see it and makes them speculate the feasibility of how it is standing…it is wrong.

The bridge that I seek should be some thing where you do not add extra filigree to it. The engineering marvel itself is the art. You can make the supports a little fancier, but that symmetry, those lines, the fact that it stretches across that distance…That experience is magic . If it does not feel like flying, it is not a proper bridge.

While driving to Seattle on my trip, I crossed the bridge. It’s walls were a little high and I was worried about the experience. I was worried that it would just be that–walls that contained and ushered me away from the impossible. And then, after a distance, there was a marker where the bridge began–two sides of a doorway. The doorway welcomed me to the sky.

The walls came down. I could see the ocean. I could see that we were high. But…how high? I didn’t know, and that mystery tickled me. I could see the great distance between the two land islands. I could see the skyline. The speed of my car carrying me over the bridge, making the walls besides the railing disappearing to air…That was magic. It became less bridge than just a floating road. And then the road disappeared. And it was just air.

I

was

flying

If the bridge cannot spark wonder like this, why build it? Why do we build anything that does not please us? Inspire us? If it does not give that heart…that significance…that wonder…to someone else? The greatest things I would like to build is because I think they are beautiful. Tragic. Pained. Joyful. Life is all of these terrible things. And if we can’t seek to capture that in the things that we touch… we have failed.

Or perhaps, we just haven’t found our people. You know, the ones that know that bridges are magic.

There are too many people that don’t think so.