SEI Discussion
Educating Engineers to Create Good-looking Bridges
by Paul Gauvreau
Published in Structural Engineering International (SEI) vol. 26(3):198206.
Discussion on paper
Ignacio Paya-Zaforteza, Associate Professor. Dr., Universitat Politcnica de Valncia, Spain. Contact: igpaza@cst.upv.es
DOI: 10.2749/101686616X1461
Prof. Gauvreau has written a very
interesting article on how to enhance
the engineering curriculum to teach
engineers how to create good looking
bridges. He believes changes in the
curriculum should focus on improving
the visual characteristics of practical
bridges (i.e. bridges for which no
funds have been allocated additional
to what is required to perform their
required practical function) and that
the key to success lies in increasing
the capacity of engineers to design
bridges that embody new ideas that
create economic value.
I must say I share many of Prof. Gauv-
reaus ideas, but I also think that the
curriculum needs a lot of radical
changes to give structural engineering
students a much broader view of the
subject. As Billington [1] stated years
ago, our structures are multidimen-
sional as they have a scientic dimen-
sion (related to their efciency), a
social dimension (related to their cost)
and a symbolic dimension (related to
their elegance). The structures also
have a value (see e.g. Duguid [2] and
Paya-Zaforteza [3]) and this value is
not only nancial but also symbolic.
Few structures can be found to match
the value of the Golden Gate Bridge.
This structure has an economic value
due to the service it provides, the col-
lected tolls, the operating and mainte-
nance costs and other concepts, but it
also has an incalculable symbolic
value. Is there any way to measure
what the Golden Gate represents for
the city of San Francisco and even for
mankind as a whole? The Golden
Gate has become a collective icon,
and, in fact, has often been the objec-
tive of attacks or destroyed in the
movies (see e.g. It came from beneath
the sea (1955), X-Men: the last
stand (2006), Pacic rim (2013) or
Godzilla (2014) to name a few),
because destroying this bridge is like
destroying a very important part of
134 Discussion
civilization. Innovation is another fac-
tor that should also be considered.
Innovative bridges, such as those that
introduce new construction materials
or new design concepts, can be more
expensive than traditional designs.
However, after a detailed study, they
can be worth building because they
can create value and contribute to
advances in construction techniques,
especially if we take into account that
what is expensive today, can be much
cheaper in the future if we face the
challenge of building it. Finally, the life
cycle of our structures, and therefore
their maintenance and demolition
stages, should be considered in addi-
tion to their planning and construction.
Therefore, any attempt to improve
engineers education needs to take
into account the multidimensional
character of our structures. Teaching
the ideals of structural art (economy,
efciency and elegance) combined
with the concepts of value, innovation,
and life cycle, provides an excellent
way of doing this and does not require
a large amount of time: one or two
hours can be enough to teach the
basics. Of course, the more time spent
on this the better, and examples exist
of very successful courses combining
structural art, construction history,
structural analyses and eld trips
(see e.g. Glisic et al.[4], Paya-
Zaforteza and Lzaro-Fernndez [5],
Paya-Zaforteza et al. [6] and the web-
sites about F. Khan [7], German
shells [8] and Spanish bridges [9]).
Field trips are especially important
and have an extraordinary value: they
provide a unique opportunity to
feel the structures with all our
senses, to meet bridge designers and
to have discussions that give students
a unique opportunity to practice their
communication skills and become pas-
queta $2,400 per m2 in 2012 prices
sionate about structural engineering.
I also think that some of Prof. Gauv-
reaus ideas need wider discussion. In
Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017
my opinion, the distinction between
premium and practical bridges should
not be too strict or be based on the
money spent on aesthetic aspects, but
on whether this extra cost is justied.
In this respect, I agree with Sobrino
[10], who has pointed out that a
rational increase of cost to select a vis-
ually attractive bridge is always justi-
ed and it is unnecessary to rigidly x
this increase. Instead, the considera-
tion should be grounded in the ethical
and specic circumstances of the
project.
Secondly, I do not think that the
teaching effort should focus exclu-
sively on practical bridges or that pre-
mium bridges should be left out of the
engineering curriculum. My view is
that premium bridges also deserve
attention, as they provide unique
opportunities to explore different
solutions and conduct compare and
contrast activities that help to
develop critical thinking (see
e.g. Huynh and Paya-Zaforteza [11],
Garlock [12], and Paya-Zaforteza [3]
for some examples). These can be
very powerful alarm clocks for our
students. Prof. Maria Garlock and I
carried out an interesting experiment
that showed the value of premium
bridges as learning tools. In the 2015
edition of the Structures and the
Urban Environment course taken by
both engineering and liberal-arts stu-
dents at Princeton University, we
showed them two pictures of bridges
built at the same time in Seville
(Spain) and having a similar context:
the Alamillo Bridge and the Barqueta
Bridge. We asked the students which
they preferred and the vast majority
chose the Alamillo. We then told
them how much each had cost
(Alamillo $19,800 per m2 and Bar-
according to [12]). We then repeated
the same question asking the students
to consider the cost of the bridges to
the citizens and most of them changed
their preference to the cheaper Bar-
queta Bridge!
Thirdly Prof. Gauvreau advises tea-
chers not to refer to the great works
of bridge engineering as structural
art because encouraging future
bridge designers to think of them-
selves as artists increases the likeli-
hood of shifting the focus too much
towards purely aesthetic concerns,
which in turn can lead to the transfor-
mation of practical bridges into pre-
mium bridges. However, this is not
correct; the tradition of structural art
is a tradition of balance between
economy, efciency and aesthetics.
There is therefore little risk in using
the term structural art if the topic is
properly presented. In fact, a recent
study by Hu et al.[13] has shown how
the recognition of the ideas of struc-
tural art with the help of education
and certain practices can instill aes-
thetic motivation and improve future
designs. In my experience, students
trained in the ideas of structural art
develop a broader view of what engi-
neering is and can bring this view with
them wherever they work. It is not
about becoming the next Robert Mail-
lart, Eduardo Torroja or Christian
Menn, it is about recognizing and
developing creativity, about being a
sensitive engineer regardless of the
scale of the work and the working
position and it is also about develop-
ing a passion for the engineering pro-
fession. This is especially important,
since these sensitive and passionate
students may later be in the position
of taking important decisions as
designers, contractors or civil servants.
In this regard, I think that:
Reply to above Discussion
Paul Gauvreau, Dr.sc.techn., P.Eng., Prof., Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto. Contact: pg@ecf.utoronto.ca
I would like to thank Professor
Paya-Zaforteza for his discussion. He
has raised some excellent questions
arising from several points I made in
my article. I would also like to
thank the editors of SEI for giving
me the opportunity to respond to
this discussion.
In my article, I put forth a case for
focusing the curriculum on practical
bridges, which I dened as works for
which no funds were specically allo-
cated to create a visual impression,
Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017
(a) teaching structural art is com-
pletely in agreement with the impor-
tant ideas mentioned by Prof.
Gauvreau in the conclusions of his
paper, and (b) this topic should be
present in all civil engineering curri-
cula. In any case, the ideas of struc-
tural art should not be taught as a
dogma, and students should be
encouraged not only to criticize
bridges according to the ideas of
structural art, but also to question
structural art as a framework to
criticize.
To sum up, I think that the focus
should not be on educating engineers
to produce good-looking bridges, but
on educating to create structures of
outstanding quality, where the term
quality includes many factors. This
requires an education that embraces
all the dimensions of the structure, as
well as the ideas of value, innovation
and life-cycle. The task is not easy,
but some success has already been
achieved in the form of new paths for
the education of the engineer.
References
[1] Billington DP. The Tower and the Bridge
Basic Books: New York, 1983.
[2] Duguid B. Benchmarking cost and value of
landmark footbridges. Proceedings of the 4th
International Conference Footbridge, Wroclaw,
Poland, 2011.
[3] Paya-Zaforteza I. On the development of
structural criticism through case studies. In Large
structures and infrastructures for environmentally
constrained and urbanised areas. IABSE (Inter-
national Association for Bridge and Structural
Engineering): Zurich, 2010; 1923.
[4] Glisic B, Garlock M, Adriaenssens S. Inno-
vative education in engineering: a social and
over and above what was necessary to
perform the practical function. Profes-
sor Paya-Zaforteza suggests that this
focus is too narrow, since it does not
account for what he calls the multidi-
mensional character of bridges. He
goes on to point out that limiting the
focus to practical bridges will exclude
some bridges that have taken on
iconic status, such as his example of
the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as
bridges for which an increase in cost
to create a specic visual impression
multi-dimensional exploration of structures. In
Proc. of the ASCE Structures Congress: ASCE,
Boston, April, 2014.
[5] Pay-Zaforteza, I., Lzaro-Fernndez, C.
Structural engineering is much more than for-
mulas: Introducing a new course on philosophy
of structures. In: Engineering for Progress,
Nature and People, pp. 945-952, September
2014.
[6] Pay-Zaforteza, I., Garlock, M.E.M.,
Adriaenssens, S., Glisic, B. The art of Spanish
bridge design, a new course promoting the
holistic learning of structural engineering. In:
IABSE Conference, Geneva 2015: Structural
Engineering: Providing Solutions to Global
Challenges - Report, IABSE (International
Association for Bridge and Structural Engineer-
ing), pp. 315-316, September 2015.
[7] http://khan.princeton.edu/. Accessed on
October 3, 2016
[8] http://shells.princeton.edu/. Accessed on
October 3, 2016
[9] http://spanishbridges.princeton.edu/. Accessed
on October 3, 2016
[10] Sobrino J. A bridge is more than a bridge:
aesthetics, cost and ethics in bridge design.
Structural Engineering International 2013:,
23(3): 340345. https://doi.org/10.2749/
101686613X13627347099917
[11] Huynh T., Pay-Zaforteza, I. Thinking crit-
ically about structural engineering through role-
playing games. In: IABSE Congress, Stockholm
2016: Challenges in Design and Construction of
an Innovative and Sustainable Built Environ-
ment - Report, IABSE (International Associa-
tion for Bridge and Structural Engineering),
pp. 711-717, September 2015.
[12] Garlock M. The Art of Structural Engi-
neering. Bridges. Massive Open On-line Course
developed at Princeton University. https://www.
edx.org/course/art-structural-engineering-bridges-
princetonx-cee262-1x. Accessed on October
3, 2016.
[13] Hu N, Feng P, Dai G-L. Structural art:
past, present and future. Engineering Structures
2014; 79: 40716.
might have been justied because of
the value that was created as a result.
I was aware of all this when I made
my original recommendation. As I
stated in my article, focusing the cur-
riculum on practical bridges makes
sense for the following reasons:
1. The number of premium bridges
built in a given year is currently
negligible compared to the number
of practical bridges. This situation
is unlikely to change in the future.
Discussion 135
 Many practical bridges are works
of high visual prominence. As a
result, the visual impression they
will make is important and thus
deserves serious consideration.
2. In most cases, there is no funding
available, over and above what is
required to perform the practical
function, to improve the visual
impression made by practical
bridges. This situation is unlikely to
change in the future. If we want to
improve the aesthetic quality of
practical bridges, we thus need to
nd ways of doing so without trans-
forming them into premium
bridges.
3. The bridges of Robert Maillart and
other great designers provide con-
vincing evidence that it is possible
to design practical bridges of high
aesthetic quality, i.e., it is not nec-
essary to pay an aesthetic premium
to create a good-looking bridge.
By focusing on practical bridges, we
thus consider the vast majority of
bridges. Engineers who have devel-
oped competency and creativity in the
design of good-looking practical
bridges will perform a valuable serv-
ice to society. I am happy to leave the
teaching of premium and iconic
bridges to others, and have no com-
ment to make on the principles under-
lying the associated pedagogy or their
implementation in the curriculum.
Professor Paya-Zaforteza has sug-
gested that the denitions of practical
and premium bridges I proposed are
too strict, and that some leeway be
granted to bridges for which an aes-
thetic premium was paid but is some-
how justied by the value thus
created. The denitions I proposed
are based on facts and not on any
intrinsic value of one group relative to
the other. Practical bridges are not
necessarily better than premium
bridges, and vice versa. The deni-
tions I proposed are simple and easy
to apply, and provide a straightfor-
ward means of distinguishing between
the origin of aesthetic quality in
bridges such as those of Maillart, for
which no aesthetic premium was paid,
and other bridges, which, although
possibly very pretty, required addi-
tional funds to create their aesthetic
signicance. Dening practical and
136 Discussion
premium bridges in this way chal-
lenges us to characterize the true rela-
tion between cost and appearance in a
given bridge. What happens after that
is up to the people who will pay for
the bridge. I therefore see no reason
to change these denitions.
Professor Paya-Zaforteza disagrees
with my recommendation that we
should not refer to the bridges of
Maillart and other great designers as
structural art. I will reiterate the
arguments I made in my article which
referred to the work of Professor Carl
Condit, namely that the bridges of
Maillart (and by extension all practi-
cal bridges) lack the multiple layers of
symbolic meaning normally found in
works of art [1]. I have yet to see seri-
ous study of a bridge that demon-
strates a richness of meaning that
approaches that of the great works of
sculpture or architecture. In other
words, a beautiful bridge is rarely any-
thing other than simply a beautiful
bridge. This in no way diminishes the
beauty of bridges, the creativity
required for their design, or their
importance to society. Not all things
that are beautiful, however, are works
of art.
I nd it curious that Professor Paya-
Zaforteza appears to be giving the
term structural art a meaning that is
different from the denition originally
given by Professor David
P. Billington. Professor Paya-
Zaforteza states that the tradition of
structural art is a tradition of balance
between economy, efciency and aes-
thetics, which would imply that any
one of these qualities could be
adjusted in relation to the others to
create a suitable design. For example,
cost could be increased to create a
more beautiful structure, provided the
balance among the three qualities was
in some way suitable. This is certainly
consistent with points he has raised
several times in his discussion. In con-
trast, Billington dened the hallmarks
of structural art as: efciency (mini-
mum materials), economy (minimum
cost), and elegance (maximum aes-
thetic expression) [2]. According to
Billington, all three conditions must
be satised for a bridge to be consid-
ered as a work of structural art.
Works that achieve elegance through
Structural Engineering International Nr. 1/2017
a cost that is greater than minimum
(i.e., premium bridges) would there-
fore not be considered to be works of
structural art. Through meticulous
scholarship, Billington demonstrated
that Maillarts greatest bridges satis-
ed all three conditions.
It is clear from Billingtons writings
that economy is understood to mean
the cost of performing the practical
function. Any value associated with
the owners desire to create an iconic
or monumental structure is not con-
sidered. The Barqueta Bridge
referred to by Professor Paya-
Zaforteza in his discussion was
required by its owner to be endowed
with specic visual qualities that were
considered appropriate to its role as a
gateway to the 1992 World Exposition
in Seville. According to Professor
Paya-Zafortezas denition, this
bridge could be a work of structural
art, since it provided value (practical
function plus specic visual qualities
desired by the owner) at a price that
was acceptable to the owner. It is
obvious, however, that the practical
function of this crossing could have
been accomplished with a much sim-
pler and lower cost bridge, such as a
continuous girder. According to Pro-
fessor Billingtons denition, there-
fore, this bridge would not be a work
of structural art, since it did not mini-
mize cost required to perform the
practical function. When the standard
by which economy is judged is practi-
cal function plus perceived aesthetic
value, we effectively make it possible
for just about any bridge, including
extravagant signature bridges to be
considered economical. To avoid con-
fusion, it would perhaps help to make
it clear to readers when the term
structural art is used in a sense that
differs from the original denition
proposed by Billington.
References
[1] Condit CW. Review of Robert Maillarts
Bridges by David P. Billington. Technology and
Culture 1980; 21(2): 243246.
[2] Billington DP. The Tower and the Bridge
Basic Books: New York, 1983.