Footbridge at Špica

The footbridge Gruber connects the city with the green hinterland. The footbridge’s primary expression is its engineering culture, which manifests through the precise rethoric of construction instead of the clasical rhetoric that is characteristic for the bridges in the urban environment of the city’s historic centre. It emphasises the role of connecting the two river banks, of walking over the bridge, and the experience of the river’s space. The bridge was conceived as a spatial steel structure forming a double arch with an open triangular cross-section. The shape of triangles is changing along the longitudinal profile. The arch of the structure carries the arch of the walking surface and forms an interesting game of two geometries. The profile of the structural frame rises more than the pedestrian surface, that why the bridge narrows towards the centre and expands towards the banks. The arch is tense as a musical instrument and plays in a duet with the nearby railway bridge. The bridge is a part of the renovation of river banks and bridges in Ljubljana.