The architecture of darkness

As of today, the walk on the Bay Bridge is but a little more than a week away. So now I’ve had some opportunity to put some mental effort into the factors that might cause some bridges (and other structures) to seem evil, creepy and sinister. These unknown factors stand separate from any dark history of the structure in question, and likely arise from design and configuration. An example of this phenomena can be found in representations of living things as well. Considering that Halloween has just come and gone, many people find clowns, dolls and life-like mannequins to be creepy and even terrifying. Horror films and haunted houses prominently feature such grotesque representations of the human face and form. But there is a scientific explanation as to why these entities are so compelling in a negative way. It is a phenomena called the “uncanny valley” and it refers to representations of human faces that are somewhat life-like but not so much as to be seen as fully human. In other words, the mind is often repulsed that which is seen as “not quite” human, but not so distorted as to be seen as cartoonish. The film “The Polar Express” suffered from this problem wherein the human characters were too realistic to be seen as animated but not realistic enough to be seen as real people. Many viewers found these characters to be very unsettling looking.

Yet there are other situations where a representation of a human face has beguiled and fascinated people for ages. The Mona Lisa is a great example of this. The very slight smile of the woman featured in Leonardo DaVinci’s most famous painting is perhaps the main thing that makes it what it so interesting. For whatever reason, hers is a face that so many find intriguing rather than creepy. With regards to human faces, there are also mathematical ratios that can be applied that reliably predict those faces that are deemed attractive verses those deemed grotesque. Given that I totally suck at math, I will not even attempt to get into any of that. But such “perfect” ratios also exist in nature in all sorts of forms and shapes in plants, animals and even non-living things. I am now thinking that it is this sort of aesthetic issue that bedevils certain bridges like the Sunshine Skyway.

I was presented with a big clue not long ago when I purchased a book about bridges, which I finally have had the chance to start skimming thru. The title is “Bridges: A History of The World’s Most Spectacular Spans” by Judith Dupre, if you are so interested. This book begins with an interview of the CEO of a company that designs and builds bridges. Said company is currently blacklisted by the US federal government due to some serious engineering flaws on several bridges, one of which collapsed and killed several people. But, irrespective of that, in the interview the CEO goes to great length to emphasize the efforts her organization goes to regarding the aesthetics of the bridges they create. This includes some basic mathematical formulas for designing bridges to increase their visual appeal. Then, as I thumbed thru that book, looking at photos of various bridges, it dawned on me that most all of the creepy looking ones were in fact designed by this very company! Yikes! This includes the trifecta of trepidation – the William V. Roth Jr. Bridge in Delaware (the “mini-Skyway”), the Varina-Enon Bridge just east of Richmond, Virginia, and of course the ever dreadful Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa, Florida. That cannot just be a coincidence….I had initially thought that perhaps a common theme in sinister bridges was those that are of the cable stayed type. That type encompasses all of the trifecta of trepidation, but then again, the Talmadge Bridge in Savannah is also a cable stayed bridge but lacks the creepy aura of those three. In fact, there are plenty of cable stayed bridges out there that also lack this dark aspect. This designer of the macabre has also created concrete bridges, which are more difficult to attribute to it due the general simplicity of that type of bridge. Yet there is one such bridge that does indeed have a sense of creepiness about it…