Geberit View 2012

Waterways
The
invisible
bridge
Architecture, submerged
The West Brabant Water Line in the south of the Netherlands is a series of fortifications
dating from the 17 th century that served as a barrier in wars against the Spanish
and the French. In the event of an attack, the land in front of the dikes could be
flooded. Over the last 200 years, however, the landscape, which has been named
a Unesco World Heritage Site, has deteriorated visibly, until recently one of the
defense structures, the star-shaped “Fort de Roovere” fortress, was reconstructed
as a cultural heritage and local recreation area. To make the facility accessible to
visitors, a conventional bridge over the moat would have been sufficient. But, for the
Dutch and Belgian project architects Ro Koster and Ad Kil, such a solution would
have been a literal paradox: A bridge over the defensive dikes, not to mention in the
direction from which the enemy once came, seemed to them to be in absolute
contradiction with the spirit of the place. So Koster and Kil simply hid the bridge
from sight. As Moses led his people through the parted Red Sea, so too, visitors
now cross from one shore to the other directly through the moat, their feet still dry.
Almost level with the surface, the narrow, 1.10-meter-deep “Moses Bridge” cuts
through the water and the embankment of the dike. Seen from a distance, the
walkway appears to be nothing more than a line on the surface of the water. Only
see the upper bodies of the people crossing the bridge can be seen. The construction
is made possible by waterproof liners that cover the wooden structure. A concrete
foundation also safeguards against buoyancy. Overflows removed by some distance
in the moat ensure that the water level near the bridge always remains constant,
a precautionary architectural measure that is also a true experience. ←
→ www.ro-ad.org
→ www.westbrabantsewaterlinie.nl