Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. So
Speaker 1: I've been kicking around the idea of doing a sky
Speaker 1: bridge episode for a while. Um, these have always captivated
Speaker 1: me whenever I've looked at city escapes, both real city
Speaker 1: scapes and cities that I've visited or lived in, but
Speaker 1: also just imagine cities, fictional cities, uh, futuristic cities that
Speaker 1: one encounters in various films. Uh. These are of course
Speaker 1: we're talking about sky bridges or sky uh walks or
Speaker 1: you know, they're various terms one might use for these.
Speaker 1: We're talking generally about enclosed bridges of metal and glass
Speaker 1: or stone or other materials that connect artificial heights to
Speaker 1: artificial heights. And UM, I don't know about about you, Joe,
Speaker 1: if if you I don't think we've ever talked about this.
Speaker 1: If you see if you share my my interest in
Speaker 1: sky bridges, if you ever like gaze up at a
Speaker 1: sky bridge in a city and just try and imagine
Speaker 1: what it would be like to be up there in
Speaker 1: it looking out. Oh absolutely, I mean there are a
Speaker 1: number of these around the world, but they're rare enough
Speaker 1: that they still they stick out when you see them,
Speaker 1: I guess, unless you're in a in a city that
Speaker 1: has a lot of them, like Calgary or something. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that they look like something that's a kind
Speaker 1: of obvious solution that you would expect to see more
Speaker 1: of in the city that's full of tall buildings. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that we can will certainly get into the practical sides
Speaker 1: of the sky bridge, but there's also something there's something
Speaker 1: attractive about it that I find almost hard to put
Speaker 1: into words because on one level, yes, there's a view
Speaker 1: that is available to one in a sky bridge, and
Speaker 1: generally speaking, you can often look in two directions at once,
Speaker 1: and and that's that's pretty neat. But by and large,
Speaker 1: there's not a tremendous amount of difference between being on
Speaker 1: the tenth floor of the building and looking out at
Speaker 1: the city as opposed to being on a tenth floor
Speaker 1: sky bridge and looking out of the city. Um. But
Speaker 1: but for some reason, if you gave me the choice
Speaker 1: between the two, the sky bridge, of course, is tremendously
Speaker 1: more attractive as an opportunity. Well, and in a lot
Speaker 1: of recent sky bridges. They've started doing the thing where
Speaker 1: they make the bottom out of transparent materials, you know,
Speaker 1: some kind of tough glass, and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: the kids like to jump up and down on it.
Speaker 1: That's always fun. Yeah, And I think maybe with sky
Speaker 1: bridges to a lot of a lot of what makes
Speaker 1: the sky bridge attractive and interesting, it's also it's actually
Speaker 1: wrapped up in a deeper understanding of bridges, Like we're
Speaker 1: essentially taking our already existing excitement for bridges, even though
Speaker 1: we see bridges all the time, and maybe that that
Speaker 1: gets kind of like pushed down in our consciousness, but
Speaker 1: then it becomes new again when we look at something
Speaker 1: like a sky bridge. And also sky bridges kind of
Speaker 1: I think served to exaggerate the feats of skyscraper building. Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, if I'm looking at just a normal skyscraper,
Speaker 1: it may be really impressive, but if I see a
Speaker 1: little i don't know, like a gargoyle up there or
Speaker 1: some sort of like little space where a human being
Speaker 1: could potentially stand for some reason, it draws me in more,
Speaker 1: maybe like there's an artificial mountain aspect to it, And
Speaker 1: then seeing the bridge up there kind of does as
Speaker 1: much the same thing. Yeah. So in this look at
Speaker 1: sky bridges, we're gonna drawn a several different sources. One
Speaker 1: of the main sources that I'm gonna keep coming back to, though,
Speaker 1: is a wonderful history overview of sky bridges titled sky
Speaker 1: Bridges A History Interview to the Near Future by Anthony
Speaker 1: Wood and Daniel Safaric of the Council of Tall Buildings
Speaker 1: and Urban Habitat, published in two thousand nineteen in the
Speaker 1: International Journal of High Rise Buildings. The authors here define
Speaker 1: a sky bridge as quote a primarily enclosed space linking
Speaker 1: two or more build things at height, and they make
Speaker 1: a point of looking at structures that are, you know,
Speaker 1: at least six stories and high to set them apart
Speaker 1: from other mere pedestrian bridges and overpasses. Um, because I guess,
Speaker 1: truly the sky bridge at least modern sky bridges have
Speaker 1: a different feel altogether. Though some of the especially older
Speaker 1: examples we're going to look at are not necessarily going
Speaker 1: to be that high in the sky. Yeah, especially a
Speaker 1: lot of the publicly accessible uh sky bridges or or
Speaker 1: lower whatever you'd call the lower versions of them that
Speaker 1: aren't like connecting two towers of essentially the same building
Speaker 1: or buildings that have the same owner. Instead, they're you know,
Speaker 1: forming a walkway for for people or pedestrians along a
Speaker 1: sort of maybe like second story level in the city.
Speaker 1: I mentioned the example of Calgary earlier. Calgary in Canada
Speaker 1: has an extensive network of what have sometimes been called
Speaker 1: sky bridges or skyways, but I think they're mostly on
Speaker 1: more like the second story level, and and they're open
Speaker 1: to the public. You know, people can walk all around
Speaker 1: in them. Yeah. When you look of the the overall
Speaker 1: history of skybridges, it's a mix of of passageways for
Speaker 1: the elite, passageways for everyone and uh and and sometimes
Speaker 1: you have kind of kind of like double deckers where
Speaker 1: well one floor is for the residents, but the other
Speaker 1: floors for tourists. Um, so that sort of thing. Also,
Speaker 1: you have a mix of some of some of these
Speaker 1: are still very much an operations. Some are not accessible
Speaker 1: currently now I was I was recently in Chicago, and
Speaker 1: while I was there, this was probably one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that I decided, Yeah, I think now it's the
Speaker 1: time to to go ahead into the skybridge episode. Because
Speaker 1: I took one of these architectural tours by boat in
Speaker 1: the city, which which I highly recommend it's a it's
Speaker 1: a city that's it's uh, it's it's a steeped in
Speaker 1: in in architecture. And therefore, if you understand the architectural
Speaker 1: history of the city at least just a little bit,
Speaker 1: you have I think a much better understanding of what
Speaker 1: Chicago is when you when you walk around it, drive around, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And Uh. One building in particular that you can't help
Speaker 1: but notice is, of course the Wriggly Building. Uh. And indeed, uh,
Speaker 1: you have this beautiful fourteenth story sky bridge connecting the
Speaker 1: two sections. And at first glance you might think it's
Speaker 1: made out of aluminum um, but it's actually made out
Speaker 1: of allegheny nickel. Uh. So that's that's pretty interesting. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look up pictures of the Wriggly Building, yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll will definitely see this impressive sky bridge. Just trying
Speaker 1: to remember if this shows up in The Fugitive, which
Speaker 1: is a movie that I deeply associate with Chicago architecture
Speaker 1: that I'm not quite sure why. I mean, obviously it's
Speaker 1: in Chicago, I don't know what the architecture connection is.
Speaker 1: I remember as a kid, I would look at pictures
Speaker 1: of sky bridges and think, and you know, also watching
Speaker 1: a lot of action films back in the day, I
Speaker 1: kept thinking that there had to be like a great
Speaker 1: action sequence where the hero has to run through a
Speaker 1: sky bridge and maybe a helicopter is firing at him
Speaker 1: in the sky bridge, or maybe there's a fight on
Speaker 1: top of the sky bridge. And maybe my memories faint
Speaker 1: on this, maybe these things actually happen in some movie
Speaker 1: or TV show. But if they didn't, I'm I'm surprised
Speaker 1: it never happened. It seems like the most logical place,
Speaker 1: like a weird place for some sort of a fight
Speaker 1: to take place. Like why why why didn't we see
Speaker 1: this in Highlander? Right? The answer is insurance problems, that
Speaker 1: that was a scene and they wanted to shoot but
Speaker 1: they couldn't. Probably now, if anyone, if you're a New Yorker,
Speaker 1: or certainly if you've even visited New York, you've seen
Speaker 1: multiple examples of this. There are some great examples of
Speaker 1: both old school and modern sky bridges. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: look up lists of these. I know there's I think
Speaker 1: there's at least one really picturesque one that's the viewable
Speaker 1: from the high line there. But then of course we
Speaker 1: don't have to go to New York in order to
Speaker 1: experience a sky bridge, because Joe, we live in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and we have a pretty noteworthy example of sky bridges
Speaker 1: or skyways as well, and that's Peachtree Center, designed by
Speaker 1: Atlanta architect John C. Portman Jr. Uh Portman lived seventeen
Speaker 1: and he's famed for popularizing the atrium as well as
Speaker 1: just leaving a profound mark on downtown Atlanta and U
Speaker 1: One of the things that he also did is especially
Speaker 1: with again with Peachtree Center, here is we see this
Speaker 1: um almost excessive use of of sky bridges and skyways
Speaker 1: connecting these buildings to each other. Yeah, if you drive
Speaker 1: around the city center streets, you will you will see
Speaker 1: a number of these. Yeah. They have a very seventies
Speaker 1: modern look to them, so they're they're not the classical
Speaker 1: sky bridges. They're not these supermodern looking ones you'll see
Speaker 1: in many of the examples today. But this is an
Speaker 1: example we're gonna come back to later because it's actually
Speaker 1: with Portman's work that we see some of the more
Speaker 1: pronounced social criticisms of the basic concept of the sky bridge,
Speaker 1: which are interesting to get into. Now, another local example
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. The High Museum of Art has some
Speaker 1: great sky bridge is part of the Rinzo Piano designed
Speaker 1: addition to the Core Museum in two thousand five. Joe,
Speaker 1: I know you've walked through these Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so there you always get some some brilliant sunline. There's
Speaker 1: that all that beautiful white architecture going on. I think
Speaker 1: I associate them with the sudden feeling of being irradiated
Speaker 1: because you've been in the uh climate. Because you've been
Speaker 1: you have the climate control galleries, and then suddenly, yeah,
Speaker 1: here's the sun now. Would in Safari point out that
Speaker 1: the most common function of the sky bridge is of course,
Speaker 1: to convey traffic from one building to another without forcing
Speaker 1: individuals to descend down to the ground level or even
Speaker 1: below ground level, potentially exiting and re entering the building, which,
Speaker 1: of course, if you're dealing them, especially with a building
Speaker 1: that has some sort of a security system in place
Speaker 1: and security check ins and checkpoints, we can see where
Speaker 1: that would that could become problematic. Easier to have people
Speaker 1: uh enjoy access to both buildings the bridge um and
Speaker 1: you also have situations where okay, maybe we don't want
Speaker 1: people having to cross the street deal with traffic or
Speaker 1: adverse environmental conditions. Yeah, I was trying to think what
Speaker 1: would be the main factors motivating somebody to connect buildings
Speaker 1: via skybridge versus just having people you know, enter an
Speaker 1: exit at the surface level like they normally would. And yeah,
Speaker 1: those are some of the main things that came to
Speaker 1: mind for me. Bad weather and climate that that's got
Speaker 1: to be a motivator, which is also true of places
Speaker 1: that have more underground tunnels connecting buildings together. Um. But
Speaker 1: then yeah, also bad traffic and like thoroughfares that are
Speaker 1: hard to cross. So for example, uh, this this would
Speaker 1: also include places where the where the streets are not
Speaker 1: always streets, where there's not ground on the streets, such
Speaker 1: as cities with canals. Sometimes you have sky bridges to
Speaker 1: cross those. And then of course you have security concerns,
Speaker 1: like if you have I don't know, high security government
Speaker 1: buildings or something I mentioned, they try to limit the
Speaker 1: necessity to go outside and enter a different door and
Speaker 1: do that whole thing all over again. Yeah. So, so
Speaker 1: obviously there are some some some basic reasons why you
Speaker 1: might have a skybridge connecting to buildings. Um. However, the
Speaker 1: authors here also classify some sky bridges as as quote
Speaker 1: enclosed programmatic sky bridges, meaning that there's something about them,
Speaker 1: something inside them to draw people to them beyond just
Speaker 1: mere conveyance. For example, that one example they give is
Speaker 1: the American Copper Buildings in New York City built in
Speaker 1: two six which feature a robust two story skybridge full
Speaker 1: of common rooms and swimming pools for residents. It's a
Speaker 1: great place to go swimming. Yeah, it's it's it's an
Speaker 1: interesting choice. I mean, it looks like it has a
Speaker 1: tremendous view though, I would imagine, yeah, view and just
Speaker 1: sort of novelty has got to be one of the
Speaker 1: main points for these enclosed programmatic sky bridges, because again,
Speaker 1: they're not so common connecting American buildings and in American
Speaker 1: cities that you're just numb to them. Now, like going
Speaker 1: into skybridge is kind of interesting and unique, unless you know,
Speaker 1: you just happened to be one of the few people
Speaker 1: who lives or works in buildings where you cross one
Speaker 1: every day. Yeah. Now, they also bring up a few
Speaker 1: additional expansions on the form. One is something they called
Speaker 1: the sky plane, and this is essentially a shared horizontal
Speaker 1: roof structure for two or more buildings. And the example
Speaker 1: they bring up is Marina Based Sands in Singapore. Uh, Joe,
Speaker 1: if you should probably just look up a picture of
Speaker 1: Marina Bay Sands and and just take this in because
Speaker 1: I would have to say, I mean, I'm I'm no
Speaker 1: judge of architecture here, but it looks almost a little
Speaker 1: bit ridiculous. It's this. It looks like there is a
Speaker 1: ship perched atop three identical skyscrapers. Yes, it's a cruise ship.
Speaker 1: There is a cruise ship on the buildings. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it looks really cool up there. Um,
Speaker 1: it makes me a little bit queasy to look at
Speaker 1: something these aerial shots of it for some reason. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks it looks very nice. Uh. And I guess,
Speaker 1: And and certainly we can imagine it's that we may
Speaker 1: come back to this one as we think about some
Speaker 1: arguments to be made for similar structures. They also bring
Speaker 1: up the idea of building as sky bridge. So this
Speaker 1: is when the horizontal bar of the sky bridge is
Speaker 1: so massive in comparison to the rest that it is
Speaker 1: more of a defining part of the building itself rather
Speaker 1: than something that bridges it. And this also is a
Speaker 1: is a statement one could make about like the nature
Speaker 1: of the skybridge. One of the examples will come to
Speaker 1: in a in a minute. Either the skybridge is not
Speaker 1: really um firmly set in place, it's kind of setting
Speaker 1: in there, kind of slotted into place, whereas building as skybridge,
Speaker 1: it's like it's all one structure. Um. The example they
Speaker 1: bring up is the CCTV headquarters in Beijing. This is
Speaker 1: a building I believe it was built in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: and it looks basically like a really boxy upside down
Speaker 1: you very cool design. Yeah, i'd characterize it as it
Speaker 1: looks like it was built out of the out of
Speaker 1: giant versions of the L shaped Tetris blocks, and they're
Speaker 1: connecting above the ground way you know, many many stories up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's clear that this is not just a
Speaker 1: little hallway connecting the upper levels of a skyscraper. A
Speaker 1: substantial portion of the the occupied part of the building
Speaker 1: is hanging over air. Yeah. Yeah. And and it also
Speaker 1: looks like it could walk just like like two legs
Speaker 1: and a pelvis. But but like they walked out of
Speaker 1: the Tron universe or something. You offend the master control program,
Speaker 1: this building comes walking at you it probably does. Ya,
Speaker 1: thank thank. Now you might be wondering, well, what's the
Speaker 1: highest sky bridge in the world. Well, I believe if
Speaker 1: the Guinness Book of World Records is correct on this,
Speaker 1: it is the Patronis Towers in on Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
Speaker 1: The this is a quote a double deck bridge at
Speaker 1: the forty one and forty two floors. It's a hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy or five fifty eight feet above the ground
Speaker 1: and measures fifty eight ms or a hundred ninety feet
Speaker 1: in length, weighs seven fifty metric tons. Uh and this
Speaker 1: building opened in uh. This one is really cool looking.
Speaker 1: This is one of the ones I was talking about
Speaker 1: earlier where it's essentially it's a connector between two towers
Speaker 1: that are the same building. Like it's all one complex,
Speaker 1: but the complex consists of like a you know, a
Speaker 1: lower level thing and then two towers going straight up
Speaker 1: and they're connected in the at the middle of their
Speaker 1: height by this sky bridge. Yeah, this is an interesting
Speaker 1: one to look at two because first of all, it's
Speaker 1: like it's so high up and at the floor you
Speaker 1: can imagine a good case being made, like what if
Speaker 1: you need to get to the next tower. Uh, you
Speaker 1: don't want to go down forty floors and then up
Speaker 1: another forty floors. What if you could just walk over? Um?
Speaker 1: And of course you can adjust the math based on
Speaker 1: what floor you're trying to get to in each tower.
Speaker 1: And I think it's an area of the complex that
Speaker 1: has increased foot traffic because there's sort of a sky
Speaker 1: lobby concept, like you go halfway up the towers and
Speaker 1: there's it's not just more regular office occupancy there, there
Speaker 1: are I don't know, lobbies and and and things for
Speaker 1: people to hang out and walk around and do at
Speaker 1: that level. Yeah, and apparently one whole floor that is
Speaker 1: for is open to to tourists and as you know,
Speaker 1: part of this lobby concept. The other is apparently closed
Speaker 1: off and more for residents or businesses what have you. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's it's neat that on top of this, and
Speaker 1: not only is it mere conveyance, but also it adds
Speaker 1: at least a little bit of structural support as well
Speaker 1: as a possible means of evacuating individuals from one tower
Speaker 1: into the other during an emergency. Maybe not a primary function,
Speaker 1: but but one that they've apparently looked into, Like what
Speaker 1: if there was an emergency in one tower, but the
Speaker 1: other tower was still viable. Uh. That's one way you
Speaker 1: could help get people out. It's also interesting that this
Speaker 1: bridge is not directly connected to the buildings. It's designed
Speaker 1: so that it can shift or slide in and out
Speaker 1: of them to to counterbalance building sway from the winds. Well,
Speaker 1: So that's I mean, this is something that I always
Speaker 1: forget about skyscrapers, and then I'm told about skyscrapers, and
Speaker 1: it kind of whigs me out a little bit, the
Speaker 1: the idea that, yes, they're not just purely stationary. They
Speaker 1: have a little give to them. There's a little bit
Speaker 1: of sway involved, and certainly if you have a bridge
Speaker 1: connecting to uh skyscrapers, you have to take that into account,
Speaker 1: all right. So at this point I thought we might
Speaker 1: get into some of the history of the skybridge. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things about our our look at skybridges
Speaker 1: here is we're not going to be able to look
Speaker 1: at every step in the process. We're not gonna take
Speaker 1: use skybridge by skybridge through human history. But we thought
Speaker 1: it might be a good idea to hit on some
Speaker 1: key examples, some of which are more historical in nature.
Speaker 1: UH and before we get into some of the psych
Speaker 1: logical aspects, before we get into some of the futurist
Speaker 1: ideas that are tied up with sky bridges. And so
Speaker 1: a great place to start is to travel to Italy. Surely,
Speaker 1: I think maybe we should start by taking a look
Speaker 1: at the Bridge of Size or the Ponte day Suspiri
Speaker 1: in italian Um. You know, Suspiria, like Suspiria, like the
Speaker 1: movie Size the Size, this is a beautiful one. And
Speaker 1: this is one where if you you look it up,
Speaker 1: you'll instantly recognize it. You'll instantly find yourself longing to
Speaker 1: be in a gondola with with with your beloved or
Speaker 1: some imagine beloved, perhaps with a glass of wine in hand,
Speaker 1: very ironically romantic. I'll get to that. So the Bridge
Speaker 1: of Size is is it really interesting landmark in Venice,
Speaker 1: a city that already is already unusual in many of
Speaker 1: its thoroughfares because many of them are not streets but
Speaker 1: canals navigated by boat. And one of these canals, known
Speaker 1: as the Rio de Palazzo, is crossed over by a
Speaker 1: totally enclosed limestone bridge connecting two buildings on either side
Speaker 1: at the level of what looks like about the second story.
Speaker 1: It is covered with elaborate Baroque decorations, having been commissioned
Speaker 1: by the Doge Marino Grimani. And no doge is a
Speaker 1: word that had a meaning before before internet memes. It
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with dogs. It was an office
Speaker 1: in medieval and Renaissance Italy. It was like it was
Speaker 1: kind of like being like a lord or some other
Speaker 1: kind of executive. So it was this doge, Marino Grimani,
Speaker 1: who commissioned it. I think it came up in the
Speaker 1: early seventeenth century. Apparently it is tradition for couples to
Speaker 1: kiss as they pass underneath the bridge in a boat
Speaker 1: or I don't know if it's tradition, it's at least
Speaker 1: something a lot of people do. I think especially tourists,
Speaker 1: and tourists are often taking pictures of themselves kissing with
Speaker 1: this bridge in the background. You can probably find plenty
Speaker 1: of those on the internet if you want. So, what
Speaker 1: is the purpose of this hallway in the sky over
Speaker 1: the canal that's the causing people to to spontaneously break
Speaker 1: out in kissing. Uh, you might wonder what you know,
Speaker 1: was it connecting two wings of a library or an
Speaker 1: art museum? Maybe so people could move uh, priceless antiques
Speaker 1: and books and artworks back and forth in the rain
Speaker 1: without getting wet or something like that. No, not at all.
Speaker 1: It was a bridge connecting the Doges Palace and the
Speaker 1: inquisitors facilities within to the prison on the other side
Speaker 1: of the canal. Uh. And so it's called the bridge
Speaker 1: of size because of the size of the doomed prisoners
Speaker 1: who walked within. Apparently conditions in the prison were pretty nasty.
Speaker 1: So I've I've at least read the allegation that being confined,
Speaker 1: they're frequently resulted in death. So you would, you know,
Speaker 1: you would sigh knowing your fate was sealed as you
Speaker 1: were taken across the Bridge of Size into the jail.
Speaker 1: Well that's not romantic at all. That's horrible, and it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder. Okay, then, why in particular was this
Speaker 1: enclosed and not just not just an open bridge. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know this, but I wonder if the
Speaker 1: reasoning had something to do with like preventing prisoners from
Speaker 1: trying to escape by jumping over the edge into the
Speaker 1: canal and getting away. Yeah, yeah, I mean, also, I
Speaker 1: guess given the nature of the work going on, there.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't want them seen by anybody going by
Speaker 1: in a boat. Uh, that sort of thing. I also
Speaker 1: have to say, now that you reveal its true nature,
Speaker 1: I kind of see a skull in this design. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's I mean, granted, we tend to
Speaker 1: lean into uh anthromomorphic details of things anyway, but now
Speaker 1: that I know it's it's secrets. Yeah, I kind of
Speaker 1: see these these teeth and two I sockets and uh
Speaker 1: and in a nose socket there. Well, I can't find
Speaker 1: a close up shot to look at right now, though
Speaker 1: I do think the bridge bears a certain um famili's
Speaker 1: coat of arms. It might have been the family of
Speaker 1: the Doge or or someone else. But uh, but possibly
Speaker 1: that coat of arms looks like a skull. I don't know,
Speaker 1: all right. Another interesting example from Italy, Texas to Florence,
Speaker 1: and this is a sixteenth century example. This is a
Speaker 1: sary corridor. This was built in fifteen sixty five to
Speaker 1: allow members of the powerful Medici family to move freely
Speaker 1: between their residents and the governmental center there in Florence.
Speaker 1: So it's certainly an elevated, enclosed passageway reaching the full length.
Speaker 1: I believe it's an entire kilometer in length. There's at
Speaker 1: least one section of it that is instantly identifiable as
Speaker 1: a skybridge, like there's a street below it, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But in other cases there are buildings or
Speaker 1: businesses beneath a Sari corridor. It literally just cuts through
Speaker 1: the city, built over like in one case, it's apparently
Speaker 1: built over what was some riverside butcher shops, because you know,
Speaker 1: you want to dump all that the leftovers that directly
Speaker 1: into the river. But that smelled too bad, and so
Speaker 1: with a little Medici um uh finagling, they got some
Speaker 1: jewelers in there as well. Uh. There's also a tower
Speaker 1: that it goes around because there was one stubborn Florentine
Speaker 1: who would not sell and so they had to to
Speaker 1: to to make the their corridor go around this particular tower.
Speaker 1: And there's even a place where it basically it basically
Speaker 1: cuts through the Church of Santa Felicita, opening up onto
Speaker 1: the balcony into a balcony there so that the Medici
Speaker 1: could take their corridor, attend mass, and I guess keep
Speaker 1: on going all the way, enjoying a kind of privileged
Speaker 1: view of the city. In places, uh, you know, they
Speaker 1: get to walk from point A to point B in
Speaker 1: Florence without having to worry about their uh, their enemies
Speaker 1: trying to murder them. Uh. And over the over time,
Speaker 1: portions of the Quarridor have been been altered, destroyed, rebuilt,
Speaker 1: and I believe it was closed for a while and
Speaker 1: is once more open to tourists visiting the city. You know,
Speaker 1: what I've always wanted is the ability to wake up,
Speaker 1: go to math us without ever stepping foot outside. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's such a power flex right, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, And it's definitely one to keep in mind
Speaker 1: when we talk about other examples and modern examples of
Speaker 1: sky bridges and similar structures. It would be kind of
Speaker 1: like if you didn't want to leave your bedroom to
Speaker 1: go to work, and you didn't have tele uh working technology,
Speaker 1: you could say, what if I were just to physically
Speaker 1: extend my bedroom across town to the office. How about that?
Speaker 1: And I mean that's essentially what what the Medici did here,
Speaker 1: though to some degree, I think what we're thinking of
Speaker 1: as a skybridge really has more to do with, um,
Speaker 1: with just external appearance and like what is the stuff
Speaker 1: underneath it? And how high is it and things like that.
Speaker 1: More so than than function, because there are other things
Speaker 1: that don't quite look exactly like a sky bridge, but
Speaker 1: they clearly serve the same function. And there's like a
Speaker 1: long uh elevated passageway in Rome connecting that a con
Speaker 1: city to some uh uh I don't some chapel or
Speaker 1: palace or something there. And you can see it in
Speaker 1: pictures of the city, though I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it is uncovered, so it doesn't read exactly like uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like a tunnel in the sky that's fully
Speaker 1: enclosed all around. It's more like there's just sort of
Speaker 1: this elevated bridge going over the rooftops or over parts
Speaker 1: of the city. Yeah. Yeah. To to what extent do
Speaker 1: these examples feel like a bridge? Do they have this
Speaker 1: this feeling of being above things or or or or
Speaker 1: having some sort of privileged passage through things? Uh? For instance,
Speaker 1: we mentioned cold cities or cities that have cold winters.
Speaker 1: Um The Chicago Padway is a strong example of a
Speaker 1: system like this. Parts of it are elevated, but then
Speaker 1: also parts of it are are completely underground, so that
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to go out into the
Speaker 1: elements during the winter to move from one place to another.
Speaker 1: Downtown necessarily UM on my visit to Chicago, I wanted
Speaker 1: to go down and see it. Um though it was
Speaker 1: it was very pleasant outside, so we didn't have to
Speaker 1: go down there. But I was reading some accounts of
Speaker 1: people who of course really like it, some who think
Speaker 1: that parts of it needs some work. I think some
Speaker 1: people think it is a bit dank and perhaps needs
Speaker 1: a facelift of some sort. Well, that opens up a
Speaker 1: theme that I'm definitely going to get to it at
Speaker 1: some point, maybe maybe later in this episode or maybe
Speaker 1: in the next one, but that when it comes to
Speaker 1: designing urban spaces in many ways, I think form can
Speaker 1: be about as important as function. Like it doesn't just
Speaker 1: matter are these spaces traversable and do they get you
Speaker 1: where you're going? But like there are pretty profound effects
Speaker 1: on our psychological well being depending on the various esthetic
Speaker 1: qualities of these thoroughfares and tunnels introversial spaces, and and
Speaker 1: it makes a difference in our lives what these spaces
Speaker 1: are like absolutely if you if you're spending your life
Speaker 1: walking around and like just dank concrete with no you know,
Speaker 1: no plants and no natural light and stuff that that
Speaker 1: does affect people or it's also like having super reinforced
Speaker 1: transparent flooring in your skybridge. I mean, it's fine forward
Speaker 1: for tourist scenarios, but if you're if you're using this
Speaker 1: skybridge just as a daily way of connecting, say from
Speaker 1: from your office to the coffee machine um in the
Speaker 1: other building, you don't necessarily want it to be a
Speaker 1: harrowing journey through the sky or at least not to
Speaker 1: get the coffee maybe on the way back. That would
Speaker 1: be impecible than now. If you look around at various
Speaker 1: articles about sky bridges, particularly even if you go to
Speaker 1: the wiki page for sky bridges, you'll see some images
Speaker 1: of some examples. And there's a picture that that has
Speaker 1: circulated a lot. This is a model that was found
Speaker 1: in an Eastern Han tomb in a non province in China.
Speaker 1: And this is quite uh it's it's quite interesting to
Speaker 1: look at. It is clearly a multi story building connected
Speaker 1: by an enclosed sky bridge to another shorter um tower
Speaker 1: or multi story building, and it's it's pretty cool to
Speaker 1: look at it. Again, this is this is quite old.
Speaker 1: Uh al I wasn't able to find anything to indicate
Speaker 1: that this is a model of something that was ever built.
Speaker 1: In reality, perhaps it was or perhaps this was just
Speaker 1: a model that again went into a tomb. But I
Speaker 1: was able to look around uh, and I finally found
Speaker 1: some interesting things about sky bridges and things like sky
Speaker 1: bridges that were that were actually constructed in various Chinese
Speaker 1: palace complexes and gardens. So I was looking at um
Speaker 1: the philosophical encounter embodied by the One Ning by one
Speaker 1: Hoi Zoe published in Environmental Philosophy, Volume seven, number one.
Speaker 1: This came out in spring of So The One Ning
Speaker 1: Gone or the Summer Old Summer Palace in Beijing was
Speaker 1: a complex of elaborate gardens and palaces is of the
Speaker 1: Qing dynasty, built in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty, during the Opium War, it was looted
Speaker 1: and destroyed by British and French forces. But according to
Speaker 1: Zoe here the original gardens consisted of three Chinese gardens
Speaker 1: and a Western style garden that had been designed by Jesuits.
Speaker 1: The Chinese gardens were laid out with Daoist cosmology and
Speaker 1: Finshwe in mind, so that there's so that one stroll
Speaker 1: through these gardens was said to be one of of
Speaker 1: contemplated depths. You know, it wasn't just you weren't just
Speaker 1: putting everything out of your mind as you strolled here.
Speaker 1: You got to contemplate the tao. Oh do images of
Speaker 1: these gardens remain, I would be really interested to see
Speaker 1: the difference between that and the Jesuit garden. You can
Speaker 1: there are schematics of what it looked like and UH
Speaker 1: and the ruins still exists. I believe it was looking
Speaker 1: at some photographs of this, and it's still a site
Speaker 1: that I believe can be can be visited, but probably
Speaker 1: not with all the vegetation in the original place, I
Speaker 1: don't think. So. I didn't find in that there may
Speaker 1: be some really robust creations of what these would have
Speaker 1: looked like, but I was I didn't. They didn't come
Speaker 1: up in my research. But if anyone out there has
Speaker 1: seen such an image, I would love to to look
Speaker 1: at it. So in talking about this particular park, Zoe
Speaker 1: turns to some other examples. Zoe shares that the the
Speaker 1: shan Lin Park of the emperor Chin chi Wong of
Speaker 1: the third century BC Chin Dynasty featured UH was said
Speaker 1: to feature covered double floor passageways that allowed the emperor
Speaker 1: to move from one grand palace to another quote through
Speaker 1: the wilderness, and in doing so, quote act mysteriously to
Speaker 1: avoid devils and meanwhile embrace virtuous individuals. WHOA wait, so
Speaker 1: the the skyways here were alleged to be so this
Speaker 1: emperor could like keep his movements secret sort of? Is that?
Speaker 1: Am I understanding that? Right? Yeah? If I mandered? Well, so,
Speaker 1: first of all, these wouldn't have been skyways per se.
Speaker 1: I think these were maybe situated on the ground owned
Speaker 1: but yes, that they would have been enclosed so that
Speaker 1: nobody could necessarily see him moving around. He was an
Speaker 1: important guy after all. But also he could avoid devils
Speaker 1: and embrace virtuous individuals, which, uh, you know, we can
Speaker 1: certainly lean into the supernatural interpretation of that. But also
Speaker 1: it sounds like not run into people who I don't
Speaker 1: want to greet, don't run into people who wish me harm,
Speaker 1: and also, you know, only encounter people who are are
Speaker 1: worthwhile for me the emperor to run into. But then
Speaker 1: Zoe turns to an example that I think we can
Speaker 1: properly think of as a skywalk. He says, quote in
Speaker 1: the Imperial huilin garden in the capital of liu Yang
Speaker 1: of northern way. This is the fifth century. There was
Speaker 1: an island named Pingle, on which buildings were connected by
Speaker 1: a rainbow skywalk where walking was like flying to and fro.
Speaker 1: Visitors moved about in this garden like celestial birds up
Speaker 1: and down on in a divine residence. Okay, So when
Speaker 1: they moved about and it was like flying to and fro,
Speaker 1: does that just mean that they're crossing about in the air,
Speaker 1: they're they're high up and they can see all around,
Speaker 1: or is there more significant? Like I think it's just
Speaker 1: a poetic way of saying that. Yeah, being moving from
Speaker 1: one building to another via bridge, Uh, that it it
Speaker 1: creates this feeling of flying. Yeah. I don't think they
Speaker 1: were on zip lines or anything. Yeah. Yeah, nor were
Speaker 1: they dressed like birds. But but there's there's something, you know,
Speaker 1: almost supernatural about the experience of youth and using these
Speaker 1: elevated walkways. Yes. So, And it gets a little more
Speaker 1: interesting when you look at some of the details here.
Speaker 1: Solu Yang is certainly a real place, and it's one
Speaker 1: of the oldest cities in China, which is certainly saying something.
Speaker 1: But ping Ley is also the name of a mythical island,
Speaker 1: and in fact ping Ley is said to be where
Speaker 1: the elixir of life and the eight immortals may be found.
Speaker 1: Uh And the connection here is, of course that gardens
Speaker 1: of this sort are meant to be quote unquote fairy lands,
Speaker 1: and in fact peng lay can be translated as fairy land.
Speaker 1: So these are places of supernatural beauty that that invoke
Speaker 1: different models of reality or in the earlier example that
Speaker 1: you know you're you're contemplating the Tao as you walk
Speaker 1: through it. Um. And it's mentioned by Zoe that tall
Speaker 1: buildings as well, we're thought to invite the spirits to
Speaker 1: reside in them. Uh. So it's it's neat to think of.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like these descriptions that that he's discussing here,
Speaker 1: like they really draw in things that are certainly unique
Speaker 1: to like the poetic Chinese interpretation it seems, of these structures.
Speaker 1: But I think also they get at our universal attraction
Speaker 1: to these things. Like again, there's something about the skyscraper.
Speaker 1: There's something about not only the sky bridge, but bridge
Speaker 1: them bridges themselves that invite us to them. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're in a little park and there are bridges,
Speaker 1: you gotta walk across that bridge, right yeah, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: totally I feel the same way. I'm always attracted to
Speaker 1: bridges and um and spaces that are not just normally
Speaker 1: readily accessible. Like you know, if if I see an
Speaker 1: island in the middle of the pond, I do want
Speaker 1: to go to it. I want to stand there. But
Speaker 1: and of course the same applies to locations high up.
Speaker 1: And this is something that I think is a pervasive
Speaker 1: strain of thought in the ancient world I guess maybe
Speaker 1: even um not just the ancient world, but I would
Speaker 1: say the pre industrial world, the world before skyscrapers became
Speaker 1: common in city centers everywhere, or you know, you just
Speaker 1: have like secular urban density driving driving occupancy higher and higher.
Speaker 1: In the pre industrial period, I think there was a
Speaker 1: pervasive association between physical altitude and like I don't know,
Speaker 1: the spiritual elevation or holiness or the gods. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think about how many different types of like tower
Speaker 1: type structures are associated with either royalty or divinity, going
Speaker 1: all back, all the way back to like you know,
Speaker 1: the zigarots of ancient Mesopotamia, uh, where you know, it
Speaker 1: was literally believed that in some sense the God resides
Speaker 1: on the top, or that God at least will come
Speaker 1: down to the top in some cases. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: royal towers, royal palaces with you know, things reaching high
Speaker 1: up in the air. That that that's I think we're
Speaker 1: still impressed by tall buildings now, but I think it's
Speaker 1: lost some of the magical umph that it once had
Speaker 1: in the human minds. Still there would be dennigods of
Speaker 1: today like where do they want their offices? Where do
Speaker 1: they want their their apartments? They want they want to
Speaker 1: be at the top, right, We're still drawn to that. Uh.
Speaker 1: Speaking of really tall buildings. One more note about lou
Speaker 1: Young here is that between five sixteen and five four
Speaker 1: c e. It contained the the the young Ning Pagoda,
Speaker 1: which at an estimated nine stories in height, And I
Speaker 1: think there's some back and forth about exactly how tall
Speaker 1: it was, but it read roughly nine stories in height.
Speaker 1: This was one of, if not the tallest buildings in
Speaker 1: the world at the time, according to the source i's
Speaker 1: looking at here. It was destroyed by a lightning strike
Speaker 1: which then burned it to the ground. Now, I have
Speaker 1: not had the benefit of visiting any of these sites
Speaker 1: that that I've I've mentioned here, so certainly if anyone
Speaker 1: out there listening to the show has and certainly if
Speaker 1: you have photographs, I'd love I'd love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: so certainly right in. Uh, and of course that goes
Speaker 1: that goes to we can say the same regarding any
Speaker 1: of the sky bridges we're we're discussing in this episode,
Speaker 1: or any that we we don't mention. Yes, send in
Speaker 1: your sky bridge experiences and photographs so that we may
Speaker 1: enjoy them as well. So that's it for this episode,
Speaker 1: but we will be back with a part two on
Speaker 1: this We have much more to discuss regarding sky bridges.
Speaker 1: But certainly go ahead and right in, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. As always, Core episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind publishing the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 1: podcast feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday we do
Speaker 1: listener mail. On Wednesday we do a short form artifact
Speaker 1: or monster fact that on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a strange film. Huge thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello. You can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
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