Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and it is Saturday. Time to
Speaker 2: go into the vault for an episode of Days Past.
Speaker 2: This one originally aired on July twelfth, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and it was part one of our series on the Skybridge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember. We did this series after my family
Speaker 1: went up to visit Chicago for a week and I
Speaker 1: got inspired by all the wonderful skybridges up there. And
Speaker 1: it's timely that we're recording this vault intro now because
Speaker 1: my family just got back from a trip to Manhattan
Speaker 1: where we went on another architectural boat tour and got
Speaker 1: to see a whole bunch more skybridges along the way.
Speaker 1: And yes, it's pretty magic. I'm still a huge sucker
Speaker 1: for any skybridge.
Speaker 2: Which city has better skybridges?
Speaker 1: Oh, you can't go. You can't compare, You can't compare.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to get into a battle between
Speaker 1: Chicago and New York City over skybridges. Have some real beauties.
Speaker 1: But if anyone out there has an opinion, feel free
Speaker 1: to vote. Will we can discuss this on listener Mail.
Speaker 2: Episodes Tired, the Pizza Fight, Wired, the Skybridge Fight.
Speaker 3: Yes, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. So I've
Speaker 1: been kicking around the idea of doing a skybridge episode
Speaker 1: for a while. These have always captivated me whenever I've
Speaker 1: looked at city scapes, both real city scapes and cities
Speaker 1: that I've visited or lived in, but also just imagine cities,
Speaker 1: fictional cities, futuristic cities that one encounters in various films.
Speaker 1: These are, of course, we're talking about skybridges or sky
Speaker 1: walks or you know, there are various terms one might
Speaker 1: use for these. We're talking generally about enclosed bridges of
Speaker 1: metal and glass or stone or other materials that connect
Speaker 1: artificial heights to artificial heights. And I don't know about
Speaker 1: it about you, Joe, if I don't think we've ever
Speaker 1: talked about this. See if you share my interest in skybridges,
Speaker 1: If you ever gaze up at a skybridge in a
Speaker 1: city and just try and imagine what it would be
Speaker 1: like to be up there in it looking out.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, I mean there are a number of these
Speaker 2: around the world, but they're rare enough that they still
Speaker 2: they stick out when you see them, I guess, unless
Speaker 2: you're in a city that has a lot of them,
Speaker 2: like Calgary or something. But yeah, they look like something
Speaker 2: that's the kind of obvious solution that you would expect
Speaker 2: to see more of in the city that's full of
Speaker 2: tall buildings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that we can. We'll certainly get into the
Speaker 1: practical sides of the skybridge, but there's also something there's
Speaker 1: something attractive about it that I find almost hard to
Speaker 1: to put into words because on one level, yes, there's
Speaker 1: a view that is available to one in a skybridge,
Speaker 1: and generally speaking, you can often look in two directions
Speaker 1: at once, 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 a building and looking out at
Speaker 1: the city as opposed to being on a tenth floor
Speaker 1: skybridge and looking out of the city. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: if you gave me the choice between the two, the skybridge,
Speaker 1: of course, is tremendously more attractive as an opportunity.
Speaker 2: Well, and in a lot of recent sky bridges they've
Speaker 2: started doing the thing where they make the bottom out
Speaker 2: of transparent materials, you know, sometime tough glass, and of
Speaker 2: course you know, the kids like to jump up and
Speaker 2: down on it. That's always fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think maybe with skybridge is too a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of what makes the skybridge attractive
Speaker 1: and interesting, it's also it's actually wrapped up in a
Speaker 1: deeper understanding of bridges, Like we're essentially taking our already
Speaker 1: existing excitement for bridges, even though we see bridges all
Speaker 1: the time, and maybe that gets kind of like pushed
Speaker 1: down in our consciousness, but then it becomes new again
Speaker 1: when we look at something like a skybridge, and also
Speaker 1: skybridges kind of I think serve to exaggerate the feats
Speaker 1: of skyscraper building. Like, for instance, if I'm looking at
Speaker 1: just a normal skyscraper, it may be really impressive, but
Speaker 1: if I see a little i don't know, like a
Speaker 1: gargoyle up there or some sort of like little space
Speaker 1: where a human being could potentially stand for some reason,
Speaker 1: it draws me in more. Maybe look, there's an artificial
Speaker 1: mountain aspect to it, and then seeing the bridge up
Speaker 1: there kind of does much the same thing. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: in this look at skybridges, we're gonna draw several different sources.
Speaker 1: One of the main sources that are going to keep
Speaker 1: coming back to, though, is a wonderful history overview of
Speaker 1: skybridges titled Skybridge is a History in a View to
Speaker 1: the Near Future by Anthony Wood and Daniel Sapharik the
Speaker 1: Council of Tall Buildings in Urban Habitat, published in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen in the International Journal of High Rise Buildings. The
Speaker 1: authors here define a skybridge as quote a primarily enclosed
Speaker 1: space linking two or more buildings at height, and they
Speaker 1: make a point of looking at structures that are at
Speaker 1: least six stories in high to set them apart from
Speaker 1: other mere pedestrian bridges and overpasses, because I guess truly
Speaker 1: the skybridge, or at least modern skybridges, have a different
Speaker 1: feel altogether. Though some of the especially older examples we're
Speaker 1: going to look at are not necessarily going to be
Speaker 1: that high in the sky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially a lot of the publicly accessible skybridges or
Speaker 2: lower whatever you'd call the lower versions of them that
Speaker 2: aren't like connecting two towers of essentially the same building
Speaker 2: or buildings that have the same owner. Instead, they're forming
Speaker 2: a walkway for people or pedestrians along a sort of
Speaker 2: maybe like second story level in the city. I mentioned
Speaker 2: the example of Calgary earlier. Calgary and can It has
Speaker 2: an extensive network of what have sometimes been called skybridges
Speaker 2: or skyways, but I think they're mostly on more like
Speaker 2: the second story level, and and they're open to the public.
Speaker 2: You know, people can walk all around in them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When you look at the overall history of skybridges,
Speaker 1: it's a mix of of passageways for the elite, passageways
Speaker 1: for everyone and uh and and sometimes you have kind
Speaker 1: of like double deckers where well one floor is for
Speaker 1: the residents, but the other floor is for tourists, so
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Also you have a mix of
Speaker 1: some of some of these are still very much in operation,
Speaker 1: some are not accessible currently. Now I was I was
Speaker 1: recently in Chicago, and while I was there, this was
Speaker 1: probably one of the reasons that I decided, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think now it's the time to go ahead into the
Speaker 1: skybridge episode. Because I took one of these architectural tours
Speaker 1: by boat in the city, which which I highly recommend.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a city that's it's uh, it's steeped
Speaker 1: in in architecture, and therefore, or if you understand the
Speaker 1: architectural 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 walk around it, drive around it,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And one building in particular that you can't
Speaker 1: help but notice is, of course, the Wriggly Building. And
Speaker 1: indeed you have this beautiful fourteenth story skybridge connecting the
Speaker 1: two sections, and at first glance you might think it's
Speaker 1: made out of aluminum, but it's actually made out of
Speaker 1: Allegheny nickel. So that's pretty interesting. But yeah, if you
Speaker 1: look up pictures of the Wrigley Building, yeah you'll definitely
Speaker 1: see this impressive skybridge.
Speaker 2: It's trying to remember if this shows up in The Fugitive,
Speaker 2: which is a movie that I deeply associate with Chicago architecture,
Speaker 2: though I'm not quite sure why. I mean, obviously it's
Speaker 2: 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 skybridges and think also, watching a lot of action
Speaker 1: films back in the day, I kept thinking that there
Speaker 1: had to be like a great action sequence where the
Speaker 1: hero has to run through a skybridge, and maybe a
Speaker 1: helicopter is firing at him in the skybridge, or maybe
Speaker 1: there's a fight on top of the skybridge, and maybe
Speaker 1: my memories faint on this. Maybe these things actually happened
Speaker 1: in some movie or TV show. But if they didn't,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it never happened. It seems like the most
Speaker 1: logical place, like a weird place, for some sort of
Speaker 1: a fight to take place. Like why didn't we see
Speaker 1: this in Highlander?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: The answer is insurance problems. That was a scene they
Speaker 2: wanted to shoot but they couldn't.
Speaker 1: Probably, now, if anyone, if you're a New Yorker, or
Speaker 1: certainly if you've even visited New York, you've seen multiple
Speaker 1: examples of this. There are some great examples of both
Speaker 1: old school and modern skybridges. You can look up lists
Speaker 1: of these. I think there's at least one really picturesque
Speaker 1: one that's the viewable from the high Line there. But then,
Speaker 1: of course we don't have to go to New York
Speaker 1: in order to experience a sky bridge, because Joe, we
Speaker 1: live in Atlanta and we have a pretty noteworthy example
Speaker 1: of skybridges or skyways as well, and that's Peachtree Center,
Speaker 1: designed by Atlanta architect John C. Portman Junior. Portman lived
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four through twenty seventeen, and he's famed for
Speaker 1: popularizing the atrium as well as just leaving a profound
Speaker 1: mark on downtown Atlanta. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: he also did is, especially again with Peachtree Center here
Speaker 1: is we see this almost excessive use of skybridges and
Speaker 1: skyways connecting these buildings to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you drive around the city center streets, you
Speaker 2: will see a number of these.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have a very seventies modern look to them,
Speaker 1: so they're not the classical skybridges. They're not these super
Speaker 1: modern looking ones you'll see in many of the examples today.
Speaker 1: But this, this is an example we're going to come
Speaker 1: back to later because it's actually with Portman's work that
Speaker 1: we see some of the more pronounced social criticisms of
Speaker 1: the basic concept of the skybridge, which are interesting to
Speaker 1: get into. Now, another local example here in Atlanta, the
Speaker 1: High Museum of Art has some great skybridges part of
Speaker 1: the Rinzo Piano designed addition to the Core Museum in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. Joe, I know you've walked.
Speaker 2: Through these oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So there you always get some some brilliant sunlight. There's
Speaker 1: all that beautiful white architecture going on.
Speaker 2: I think I associate them with the sudden feeling of
Speaker 2: being irradiated.
Speaker 1: Because you've been in the climate because the climate control galleries,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly, yeah, here's the sun now. Would in
Speaker 1: Sopharik point out that the most common function of the
Speaker 1: skybridge is of course, to convey traffic from one building
Speaker 1: to another without forcing individuals to descend down to the
Speaker 1: ground level or even below ground level, potentially exiting and
Speaker 1: re entering the building, which, of course, if you're dealing
Speaker 1: with special with a building that has some sort of
Speaker 1: a security system in place and security check ins and checkpoints,
Speaker 1: we can see where that would that could become problematic.
Speaker 1: Easier to have people enjoy access to both buildings via
Speaker 1: the bridge, and you also have situations where okay, maybe
Speaker 1: we don't want people having to cross the street, deal
Speaker 1: with traffic or adverse environmental conditions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was trying to think what would be the
Speaker 2: main factors motivating somebody to connect buildings via skybridge versus
Speaker 2: just having people you enter an exit at the surface
Speaker 2: level like they normally would. And yeah, those are some
Speaker 2: of the main things that came to mind for me.
Speaker 2: Bad weather and climate, that's got to be a motivator,
Speaker 2: which is also true of places that have more underground
Speaker 2: tunnels connecting buildings together. But then yeah, also bad traffic
Speaker 2: and like thoroughfares that are hard to cross. So for example,
Speaker 2: this would also include places where the where the streets
Speaker 2: are not always streets, where there's not ground on the streets,
Speaker 2: such as cities with canals sometimes skybridges to cross those.
Speaker 2: And then of course security concerns like if you have
Speaker 2: i don't know, high security government buildings or something imagined,
Speaker 2: they try to limit the necessity to go outside and
Speaker 2: enter a different door and do that whole thing all
Speaker 2: over again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so obviously there are some basic reasons why you
Speaker 1: might have a skybridge connecting to buildings. However, the authors
Speaker 1: here also classify some skybridges as quote enclosed programmatic skybridges,
Speaker 1: meaning that there's something about them, something inside them to
Speaker 1: draw people to them beyond just mere conveyance. For example,
Speaker 1: the one example they give is the American Copper Buildings
Speaker 1: in New York City, built in twenty sixteen, which feature
Speaker 1: a robust, two story skybridge full of common rooms and
Speaker 1: swimming pools for residents.
Speaker 2: It's a great place to go swimming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting choice. I mean, it looks like
Speaker 1: it has a tremendous view.
Speaker 2: Though, I would imagine, yeah, view and just sort of
Speaker 2: novelty has got to be one of the main points
Speaker 2: for these enclosed programmatic skybridges, because again, they're not so
Speaker 2: common connecting American buildings in American cities that you're just
Speaker 2: numb to them. Now, like going into skybridge is kind
Speaker 2: of interesting and unique, unless you know, you just happen
Speaker 2: to be one of the few people who lives or
Speaker 2: works in buildings where you cross one every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, they also bring up a few additional expansions
Speaker 1: on the form. One is something they called the sky plane,
Speaker 1: and this is essentially a shared horizontal roof structure for
Speaker 1: two or more buildings. And the example they bring up
Speaker 1: is Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Joe, you should probably
Speaker 1: just look up a picture of Marina Bay Sands and
Speaker 1: just take this in because I would have to say,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm no judge of architecture here, but it
Speaker 1: looks almost a little bit ridiculous. It looks like there
Speaker 1: is a ship perched atop three identical skyscrapers.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a cruise ship. There is a cruise ship
Speaker 2: on the buildings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I mean. I guess it looks really cool
Speaker 1: up there. It makes me a little bit queasy to
Speaker 1: look at some of these aerial shots of it for
Speaker 1: some reason. But yeah, it looks it looks very nice,
Speaker 1: and I guess, and certainly we can imagine so that
Speaker 1: we may come back to this one as we think
Speaker 1: about some arguments to be made for similar structures. They
Speaker 1: also bring up the idea of building as skybridge. So
Speaker 1: this is when the horizontal bar of the skybridge 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: statement one could make about like the nature of the skybridge.
Speaker 1: One of the examples will come to in a minute.
Speaker 1: Either the skybridge is not really firmly set in place.
Speaker 1: It's kind of setting in there, kind of slotted into place,
Speaker 1: whereas building a skybridge, it's like it's all one structure. Sure.
Speaker 1: The example they bring up is the CCTV headquarters in Beijing.
Speaker 1: This is a building I believe it was built in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, and it looks basically like a really boxy
Speaker 1: upside down you very cool design.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd characterize it as it looks like it was
Speaker 2: built out of the out of giant versions of the
Speaker 2: L shaped Tetris blocks and they're connecting above the ground way,
Speaker 2: you know, many many stories up. But yeah, it's clear
Speaker 2: that this is not just a little hallway connecting the
Speaker 2: upper levels of a skyscraper. A substantial portion of the
Speaker 2: occupied part of the building is hanging over air.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it also looks like it could walk
Speaker 1: like two legs and a pelvis, but like they walked
Speaker 1: out of the Tron universe or something.
Speaker 2: If you offend the master control program, this building comes
Speaker 2: walking at you.
Speaker 1: It probably does.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you might be wondering, well, what's the highest skybridge
Speaker 1: in the world. Well, I believe if the Guinness Book
Speaker 1: of World Records is correct on this, it is the
Speaker 1: Patronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. This is a
Speaker 1: quote a double deck bridge at the forty first and
Speaker 1: forty second floors. It's one hundred and seventy meters or
Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty eight feet above the ground and
Speaker 1: measures fifty eight meters or one hundred and ninety feet
Speaker 1: in length, weighs seven hundred and fifty metric tons, and
Speaker 1: this building opened in nineteen ninety four. This one is
Speaker 1: really cool looking.
Speaker 2: This is one of the ones I was talking about
Speaker 2: earlier where it's essentially it's a connector between two towers
Speaker 2: that are the same building. Like it's all one complex,
Speaker 2: but the complex consists of like a you know, a
Speaker 2: lower level thing, and then two towers going straight up
Speaker 2: and they're connected in the at the middle of their
Speaker 2: height by this skybridge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one's an interesting one to look at too,
Speaker 1: because first of all, it's so high up and at
Speaker 1: the fortieth floor, you can imagine a good case being made,
Speaker 1: like what if you need to get to the next tower,
Speaker 1: you don't want to go down forty floors and then
Speaker 1: up another forty floors, what if you could just walk
Speaker 1: over And of course you can adjust the math based
Speaker 1: on what floor you're trying to get to in each tower.
Speaker 2: And I think it's an area of the complex that
Speaker 2: has increased foot traffic because there's sort of a sky
Speaker 2: lobby concept, like you go halfway up the towers and
Speaker 2: there's it's not just more regular office occupancy. There are
Speaker 2: I don't know, lobbies and things for people to hang
Speaker 2: out and walk around and do at that level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and apparently one whole floor of it is is
Speaker 1: open to tourists and as you know, part of this
Speaker 1: lobby concept. The other is apparently closed off and more
Speaker 1: for residents or businesses, what have you. But it's neat
Speaker 1: that on top of this, not only is it mirror conveyance,
Speaker 1: but also it adds at least a little bit of
Speaker 1: structural support as well as a possible means of a
Speaker 1: evacuating individuals from one tower into the other during an emergency.
Speaker 1: Maybe not a primary function, but one that they've apparently
Speaker 1: looked into, Like what if there was an emergency in
Speaker 1: one tower but the other tower was still viable, That's
Speaker 1: one way you could help get people out. It's also
Speaker 1: interesting that this bridge is not directly connected to the buildings.
Speaker 1: It's designed so that it can shift or slide in
Speaker 1: and out of them to counterbalance building sway from the winds.
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 wigs me out a little bit, the
Speaker 1: idea that, yes, they're not just purely stationary. They have
Speaker 1: a little give to them. There's a little bit of
Speaker 1: sway involved, and certainly if you have a bridge connecting
Speaker 1: to skyscrapers, you have to take that into account, all right.
Speaker 1: So at this point I thought we might get into
Speaker 1: some of the history of the skybridge. I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the things about our look at skybridges here is
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to look at every
Speaker 1: step in the We're not going to take you skybridge
Speaker 1: by skybridge through human history. But we thought it might
Speaker 1: be a good idea to hit on some key examples,
Speaker 1: some of which are more historical in nature, and before
Speaker 1: we get into some of the psychological aspects, before we
Speaker 1: get into some of the futurist ideas that are tied
Speaker 1: up with skybridges. And so a great place to start
Speaker 1: is to travel to Italy.
Speaker 2: Surely, I think maybe we should start by taking a
Speaker 2: look at the Bridge of Size, or the Ponte de
Speaker 2: Sospiri in Italian. You know, Suspiri, like Suspiria, like the
Speaker 2: movie Size, the Size, This is.
Speaker 1: A beautiful one. And this is one where if if
Speaker 1: you look it up, you'll instantly recognize that you'll instantly
Speaker 1: find yourself longing to be in a gondola with with
Speaker 1: your beloved or some imagine beloved, perhaps with the glass
Speaker 1: of wine in hand.
Speaker 2: Very ironically romantic. I'll get to that. So the bridge
Speaker 2: of size is a really interesting landmark in Venice, a
Speaker 2: city that already is already unusual in many of its
Speaker 2: thoroughfares because many of them are not streets but canals
Speaker 2: navigated by boat. And one of these canals, known as
Speaker 2: the Rio di Palazzo, is crossed over by a totally
Speaker 2: enclosed limestone bridge connecting two buildings on either side. At
Speaker 2: the level of what looks like about the second story.
Speaker 2: It is covered with elaborate Baroque decorations, having been commissioned
Speaker 2: by the Doge Marino Grimani. And no doge is a
Speaker 2: word that had a meaning before before internet memes. It
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with dogs. It was an office
Speaker 2: in medieval and Renaissance Italy. It was like it was
Speaker 2: kind of like being like a lord or some other
Speaker 2: kind of executive. So it was this doge, Marino Grimani,
Speaker 2: who commissioned it. I think it came up in the
Speaker 2: early seventeenth century. Apparently it is tradition for couples to
Speaker 2: kiss as they pass underneath the bridge in a boat
Speaker 2: or I don't know if it's tradition, it's at least
Speaker 2: something a lot of people do, I think, especially tourists,
Speaker 2: and tourists are often taking pictures of themselves kissing with
Speaker 2: this bridge in the background. You can probably find plenty
Speaker 2: of those on the internet if you want. So, what
Speaker 2: is the purpose of this hallway in the sky over
Speaker 2: the canal that's causing people to spontaneously break out in kissing?
Speaker 2: You might wonder wha you know, was it connecting two
Speaker 2: wings of a library or an art museum, maybe so
Speaker 2: people could move priceless antiques and books and artworks back
Speaker 2: and forth in the rain without getting wet or something
Speaker 2: like that. No, not at all. It was a bridge
Speaker 2: connecting the Doge's palace and the inquisitors facilities within to
Speaker 2: the prison on the other side of the canal. And
Speaker 2: so it's called the bridge of size because of the
Speaker 2: size of the doomed prisoners who walked within. Apparently conditions
Speaker 2: in the prison were pretty nasty, so I've at least
Speaker 2: read the allegation that being confined there frequently resulted in death.
Speaker 1: So you know, you.
Speaker 2: Would sigh knowing your fate was sealed as you were
Speaker 2: taken across the bridge of size into the jail.
Speaker 1: Well, that's not romantic at all.
Speaker 2: That's horrible, and it makes me wonder. Okay, then why
Speaker 2: in particular was this enclosed and not just an open
Speaker 2: bridget I don't know this, but I wonder if the
Speaker 2: reasoning had something to do with like preventing prisoners from
Speaker 2: trying to escape by jumping over the edge into the
Speaker 2: canal and getting way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean also, I guess, given the nature
Speaker 1: of the work going on them, maybe you don't want
Speaker 1: them seen by anybody going by in a boat, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. I also have to say, now that
Speaker 1: you reveal it's true nature, I kind of see a
Speaker 1: skull in this design. I don't know if that's I mean, granted,
Speaker 1: we tend to lean into anthropomorphic details of things anyway,
Speaker 1: but now that I know it's secrets, yeah, I kind
Speaker 1: of see these teeth and two eye sockets and a
Speaker 1: nose socket there.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't find a close up shot to look
Speaker 2: at right now though I do think the bridge bears
Speaker 2: a certain family's coat of arms, it might have been
Speaker 2: the family of the Doge or someone else. Possibly that
Speaker 2: coat of arms looks like a skull.
Speaker 1: I don't know, all right. Now, another interesting example from
Speaker 1: Italy takes this to Florence, and this is a sixteenth
Speaker 1: century example. This is Vasari Corridor. This was built in
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty five to allow members of the powerful Medici
Speaker 1: family to move freely between their residence and the governmental
Speaker 1: center there in Florence. So it's certainly an elevated, enclosed
Speaker 1: passageway reaching the full length I believe it's an entire
Speaker 1: kilometer in length. There's at least one section of it
Speaker 1: that is instantly identifiable as a skybridge, like there's a
Speaker 1: street below it, that sort of thing. But in other
Speaker 1: cases there are buildings or businesses beneath Vasari Corridor. It
Speaker 1: literally just cuts through the city, built over like in
Speaker 1: one case, it's apparently built over what was some riverside
Speaker 1: butcher shops, because you know, you want to dump all
Speaker 1: of that the leftovers, directly into the river. But that
Speaker 1: smelled too bad, and so with a little Medici finagling,
Speaker 1: they got some jewelers in there as well. There's also
Speaker 1: a tower that it goes around because there was one
Speaker 1: stubborn Florentine who would not sell and so they had
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. You know, they get
Speaker 1: to walk from point A to point B in Florence
Speaker 1: without having to worry about their enemies trying to murder them.
Speaker 1: And over time, portions of the Quarriter 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.
Speaker 2: You know, what I've always wanted is the ability to
Speaker 2: wake up, go to Mass without ever stepping foot outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's such a power flex right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's definitely one to keep in mind when we
Speaker 1: talk about other examples and modern examples of skybridges and
Speaker 1: similar structures. It would be kind of like if you
Speaker 1: didn't want to leave your bedroom to go to work,
Speaker 1: and you didn't have tell a working technology, you could say,
Speaker 1: what if I were just to physically extend my bedroom
Speaker 1: across town to the office. How about that? And I
Speaker 1: mean that's essentially what the Medici did here.
Speaker 2: Though to some degree, I think what we're thinking of
Speaker 2: as a skybridge really has more to do with just
Speaker 2: external appearance and like what is the stuff underneath it
Speaker 2: and how high is it and things like that, more
Speaker 2: so than function, because there are other things that don't
Speaker 2: quite look exactly like a skybridge, but they clearly serve
Speaker 2: the same function. I know, there's like a long elevated
Speaker 2: passageway in Rome connecting Vatican City to some chapel or
Speaker 2: palace or something there, and you can see it in
Speaker 2: pictures of the city, though I think a lot of
Speaker 2: it is uncovered, so it doesn't read exactly like like
Speaker 2: a tunnel in the sky that's fully enclosed all around.
Speaker 2: It's more like there's just sort of this elevated bridge
Speaker 2: going over the rooftops or over parts of the city.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, to what extent do these examples feel like
Speaker 1: a bridge. Do they have this feeling of being above
Speaker 1: things or having some sort of privileged passage through things.
Speaker 1: For instance, we mentioned cold cities or cities that have
Speaker 1: cold winters. The Chicago Pedway is a strong example of
Speaker 1: a system like this. Parts of it are elevated, but
Speaker 1: then also parts of it 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
Speaker 1: another Downtown necessarily, on my visit to Chicago, I wanted
Speaker 1: to go down and see it. Though it was it
Speaker 1: was very pleasant outside, so we didn't have to go
Speaker 1: down there. But I was reading some accounts of people who,
Speaker 1: of course really like it, some who think that parts
Speaker 1: of it need some work. I think some people think
Speaker 1: it is a bit dank and perhaps needs a facelift
Speaker 1: of some sort.
Speaker 2: Well, that opens up a theme that I'm definitely going
Speaker 2: to get to it at some point, maybe later in
Speaker 2: this episode or maybe in the next one, but that
Speaker 2: when it comes to designing urban spaces, in many ways,
Speaker 2: I think form can be about as important as function,
Speaker 2: Like it doesn't just matter. Are these spaces traversible and
Speaker 2: do they get you where you're going? But like, there
Speaker 2: are pretty profound effects on our psychological well being depending
Speaker 2: on the various esthetic qualities of these thoroughfares and tunnels
Speaker 2: and traversal spaces, and it makes a difference in our
Speaker 2: lives what these spaces are like. Absolutely, if you're spending
Speaker 2: your life walking around and like just dank concrete with
Speaker 2: no you know, no plants and no natural light and stuff,
Speaker 2: that does affect people.
Speaker 1: Or it's also like having super reinforced transparent flooring in
Speaker 1: your skybridge. I mean, that's fine for tourist scenarios, but
Speaker 1: if you're using this skybridge just as a daily way
Speaker 1: of connecting, say from from your office to the coffee
Speaker 1: machine in the other building, you don't necessarily want it
Speaker 1: to be a harrowing journey through the sky or at
Speaker 1: least not to get the coffee maybe on the way back.
Speaker 1: That would be impowerful. Now, if you look around at
Speaker 1: various articles about skybridges, particularly like even if you go
Speaker 1: to the wiki page for skybridges, you'll see some images
Speaker 1: of some examples, and there's a picture that is circulated
Speaker 1: a lot. This is a model that was found in
Speaker 1: an Eastern Hong tomb in a non province in China,
Speaker 1: and this is quite It's quite interesting to look at
Speaker 1: It is clearly a multi story building connected by an
Speaker 1: enclosed skybridge to another shorter tower or multi story building,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty cool to look at it. Again, this
Speaker 1: is quite old. I wasn't able to find anything to
Speaker 1: indicate that this is a model of something that was
Speaker 1: ever built in reality. Perhaps it was, or perhaps this
Speaker 1: was just a model that again went into a tomb.
Speaker 1: But I was able to look around, and I found
Speaker 1: some interesting things about skybridges and things like skybridges that
Speaker 1: were that were actually constructed in various Chinese palace complexes
Speaker 1: and gardens. So I was looking at the philosophical encounter
Speaker 1: embodied by Du Wangming by Wan hoy Zo published in
Speaker 1: Environmental Phlosophy, Volume seven, number one. This came out in
Speaker 1: spring of twenty ten. So the One Being Gone or
Speaker 1: the Summer Old Summer Palace in Beijing was a complex
Speaker 1: of elaborate gardens and palaces of the Qing dynasty built
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In eighteen sixty,
Speaker 1: during the Opium War, it was looted and destroyed by
Speaker 1: British and French forces. But according to Zoe here. The
Speaker 1: original gardens consisted of three Chinese gardens and a Western
Speaker 1: style garden that had been designed by Jesuits. The Chinese
Speaker 1: gardens were laid out with Daoist cosmology and fin Shue
Speaker 1: in mind, so that one stroll through these gardens was
Speaker 1: said to be one of contemplated depths. You know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't just you were just putting everything out of your
Speaker 1: mind as you strolled here. You got to contemplate the Tao.
Speaker 2: Oh do images of these gardens remain, I would be
Speaker 2: really interested to see the difference between that and the
Speaker 2: Jesuit garden.
Speaker 1: You can there are schematics of what it looked like,
Speaker 1: and the ruins still exist. I believe. I was looking
Speaker 1: at some photographs of this, and it's still a site
Speaker 1: that I believe can be visited.
Speaker 2: But probably not with all the vegetation in the original place.
Speaker 1: I don't think. So I didn't find and there may
Speaker 1: be some really robust recreations 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 look at it. So,
Speaker 1: in talking about this particular park, Zoe turns to some
Speaker 1: other examples. Zoe shares that the sheng Lin Park of
Speaker 1: the emperor Chinshi Wong of the third century BC Chin
Speaker 1: dynasty featured was said to feature covered double floor passageways
Speaker 1: that allowed the emperor to move from one grand palace
Speaker 1: to another quote through the wilderness, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: quote act mysteriously to avoid devils and meanwhile embrace virtuous individuals.
Speaker 2: WHOA. Wait, so the skyways here were alleged to be
Speaker 2: so this emperor could keep his movement secret sort of?
Speaker 2: Is that? Am I understanding that?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? If? Well? So, first of all, these wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been skyways per se. I think these were maybe situated
Speaker 1: on the ground, but yes, they would have been enclosed
Speaker 1: so that nobody could necessarily see him moving around. He
Speaker 1: is an important guy after all. But also he could
Speaker 1: avoid devils and embrace virtuous individuals, which, you know, we
Speaker 1: can certainly lean into the supernatural interpretation of that. But
Speaker 1: also it sounds like not run into people who I
Speaker 1: don't want to greet, don't run into people who wish
Speaker 1: me harm, and also you know, only encounter people who
Speaker 1: are worthwhile for me. The emperor to run into But
Speaker 1: then Zoe turns to an example that I think we
Speaker 1: can properly think of as a skywalk. He says, quote
Speaker 1: in the Imperial while Lynn Garden in the capital of
Speaker 1: lu Yang of Northern Way, this is the fifth century,
Speaker 1: there was an island name on which buildings were connected
Speaker 1: by a rainbow skywalk, where walking was like flying to
Speaker 1: and fro. Visitors moved about in this garden like celestial
Speaker 1: birds up and down in a divine residence.
Speaker 2: Okay, So when they moved about and it was like
Speaker 2: flying to and fro, does that just mean that they're
Speaker 2: crossing about in the air, they're high up and they
Speaker 2: can see all around, or is there more significance.
Speaker 1: Like I think it's just a poetic way of saying that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: moving from one building to another via a bridge, that
Speaker 1: it creates this feeling of flying. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think they were on zip lines or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, nor were they dressed like birds. But
Speaker 1: but there's there's something, you know, almost supernatural about the
Speaker 1: experience of using these elevated walkways.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: So, and it gets a little more interesting when you
Speaker 1: look at some of the details here. So lil Yang
Speaker 1: is certainly a real place and it's one of the
Speaker 1: oldest cities in China, which is certainly saying something. But
Speaker 1: ping Lay is also the name of a mythical island,
Speaker 1: and in fact Pingley is said to be where the
Speaker 1: elixir of life and the eight immortals may be found.
Speaker 1: And the connection here is of course that gardens of
Speaker 1: this sort are meant to be quote unquote fairy lands,
Speaker 1: and in fact ping Lay can be translated as fairy land.
Speaker 1: So these are places of supernatural beauty that invoke different
Speaker 1: models of reality or in the earlier example that you're
Speaker 1: contemplating the Tao as you walk through it, and it's
Speaker 1: mentioned by Zoe, the tall buildings as well were thought
Speaker 1: to invite the spirits to reside in them. So it's
Speaker 1: it's neat to think of. Like I feel like these
Speaker 1: descriptions that he's discussing here, like they really draw in
Speaker 1: things that are certainly unique to like the poetic Chinese
Speaker 1: interpretation it seems, of these structures, but I think also
Speaker 1: they get at our universal attraction to these things. Like again,
Speaker 1: there's something about the skyscraper. There is something about not
Speaker 1: only the sky bridge, but bridge the bridges themselves that
Speaker 1: invite us to them you know, if you're in a
Speaker 1: little park and there are bridges, you got to walk
Speaker 1: across that.
Speaker 2: Bridge, right, yeah, oh yeah, totally. I feel the same way.
Speaker 2: I'm always attracted to bridges and spaces that are not
Speaker 2: just normally readily accessible. Like you know, if I see
Speaker 2: an island in the middle of the pond, I do
Speaker 2: want to go to it. I want to stand there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And of course the same applies to locations high up.
Speaker 2: And this is something that I think is a pervasive
Speaker 2: strain of thought in the ancient world. I guess maybe
Speaker 2: even not just the ancient world, but I would say
Speaker 2: the pre industrial world, the world before skyscrapers became common
Speaker 2: in city centers everywhere, or you know, you just have
Speaker 2: like secular urban density driving occupancy higher and higher. In
Speaker 2: the pre industrial period, I think there was a pervasive
Speaker 2: association between physical altitude and like I don't know, the
Speaker 2: spiritual elevation or holiness or the gods. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think about how many different types of like tower type
Speaker 2: structures are associated with either royalty or divinity, going all back,
Speaker 2: all the way back to like you know, the ziggurats
Speaker 2: of ancient Mesopotamia, where you know, it was literally believed
Speaker 2: that in some sense, the God resides on the top,
Speaker 2: or the god at least will come down to the
Speaker 2: top in some cases. And royal towers, royal palaces with
Speaker 2: you know, things reaching high up in the air. That
Speaker 2: that that's I think we're still impressed by tall buildings now,
Speaker 2: but I think it's lost some of the magical oomph
Speaker 2: that it once had in human minds.
Speaker 1: Still there would be demigods of today like where do
Speaker 1: they want their offices? Where do they want their their apartments?
Speaker 1: They want they want to be at the top, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're still drawn to that. Speaking of really tall buildings.
Speaker 1: One more note about Liu Yang here is that between
Speaker 1: five sixteen and five thirty four CE it contained the
Speaker 1: Young Ning Pagoda, which had an estimated nine stories in height.
Speaker 1: And I think there's some back and forth about exactly
Speaker 1: how tall it was, but 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 sources looking
Speaker 1: at here. It was destroyed by a lightning strike which
Speaker 1: then burned it to the ground. Now, I have not
Speaker 1: had the benefit of visiting any of these sites that
Speaker 1: I've mentioned, here. So certainly if anyone out there listening
Speaker 1: to the show has and certainly if you have photographs,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you, so certainly right in,
Speaker 1: and of course that goes that goes to We can
Speaker 1: say the same regarding any of the sky bridges where
Speaker 1: we're discussing in this episode, or any that we don't mention. Yes,
Speaker 1: send in your skybridge experiences and photographs so that we
Speaker 1: may enjoy them as well. So that's it for this episode,
Speaker 1: but we will be back with a part two on this.
Speaker 1: We have much more to discuss regarding skybridges, but certainly
Speaker 1: go ahead and right in. We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: As always, core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 1: publishing the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday we do listener mail. On
Speaker 1: Wednesday we do a short form artifact or monster fact
Speaker 1: that on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's our
Speaker 1: time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk
Speaker 1: about a strange film.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
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