John Fowler, Benjamin Baker, Forth Bridge: Opus 18

by Iain Boyd Whyte, Angus J. MacDonald, Colin Baxter (Photographer)

When the Forth Bridge opened on 4 March 1890 it was the longest railway bridge in the world and the first large structure made of steel. Crossing the wide Firth of Forth east of Edinburgh, it represents one of the greatest engineering triumphs of Victorian Britain, man’s victory over the intractable topography of land and water. Not surprisingly, such a vigorous rebuff of the natural order was condemned at the time by those late Victorians who resisted the march of technology, and William Morris described the Bridge as the »supremest specimen of all ugliness«. In response, Benjamin Baker insisted that its beauty lay in its functional elegance. Contrasting his masterpiece with the only comparable structure of the period, the Eiffel Tower, he »The Eiffel Tower is a foolish piece of work, ugly, illproportioned and of no real use to anyone.

60 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 1997

About the author

Iain Boyd Whyte is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh and author of Manmade Future (Routledge, 2007).