• 31 Oct 2024

Planning Permission for Commemorative Bridge

A Commemorative Bridge over the River Liffey was granted planning permission by Dublin City Council this month.

Designed by ritchie*studio (formerly Ian Ritchie Architects) in London, and sbp (engineers), the proposed combined pedestrian and cycle bridge will provide a new ceremonial entrance to the Irish National War Memorial Gardens (INWMGs) in Islandbridge, Dublin.

The bridge is 58 metres long and conceived as the most slender and shallow structural arch form technically possible. The result is a slender blade of stainless steel that leaps from the landscape without the need for intermediate columns, masts or suspension structures.

The overall design creates a light presence in the landscape and has a structural depth of only 35cm at the centre of the span. Its proportions offer a combination of slenderness and elegance. The bridge follows the historic alignment of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ original sketch to connect the War Memorial Gardens to Phoenix Park.

A proposal that was not realised in his original 1930s design of the gardens. The bridge evokes the memories of fallen soldiers from the 1st World War with stainless-steel bridge deck plates incorporating military boot stud imprints leading towards the Memorial Gardens, but not returning.

The bridge structure is constructed of ‘clad steel’. This material mix combines structural mild steel plate with a corrosion resistant stainless steel outer layer hot roll bonded onto the mild steel. The stainless steel finish creates a soft, light-reflecting surface.

The balustrades of stainless steel ‘reeds’ evoke the grassed estuaries crushed by military vehicles and through which soldiers marched. The ‘reeds’ are visually fluid and tactile with reflective and transparent qualities to provide a subtly changing visual experience while crossing the bridge.

The reeds slowly disappear into the landscape to meet the inclined banks on the north side planted with wildflowers, and together with planted trees, encourage biodiversity. To the south, mown grass blends into the rest of the Memorial Gardens.

The Commemorative Bridge design won an international competition organised by the RIAI in 2019 on behalf of the Office of Public Building and Works (OPW).

Extracts from Dead Ground – a poem by Ian Ritchie

The horizon, dark, dead ground. Sea of dead grass before a dawn-lit tilted arc, roots of nature and men all around. … A distant bridge, gone dead ground, gone the marsh gas fresh air, I hear a dog bark, sound of living souls. I am homebound. Architect - Ian Ritchie, Director, ritchie*studio.