Lesson 18 Chinese Stone Arch Bridges

Lesson 18  Chinese Stone Arch Bridges

Mao Yisheng

The hole of the stone arch bridge is curved, just like a rainbow. Ancient mythology says that the rainbow is "a bridge in heaven on earth", through the rainbow can go to heaven. Our poets love to arch bridge compared to the rainbow, said arch bridge is "lying rainbow" "flying rainbow", the water arch bridge described as "long rainbow lying wave".

Stone arch bridge in the history of the world's bridges appeared relatively early. This bridge not only beautiful form, and strong structure, can be decades or even thousands of years majestic span over the river, in the traffic role.

China's stone arch bridge has a long history. Water Classic" mentioned in the "traveler's bridge", built in about 282 AD, may be the earliest recorded stone arch bridge. China's stone arch bridges are almost everywhere. These bridges vary in size and form, many of them are amazing masterpieces. The most famous of them are the Zhaozhou Bridge in Zhao County, Hebei Province, and the Lugou Bridge in Fengtai District, Beijing.

The Zhaozhou Bridge, which spans the Xiao River, is a world-famous ancient stone arch bridge, and the oldest stone bridge that has been used since its creation. The bridge was built around 605 AD and has remained in its original majestic form for more than 1,300 years now. By the time of liberation, the bridge was somewhat dilapidated, and under the leadership of the people's government, after a thorough renovation, the ancient bridge was rejuvenated.

Zhaozhou Bridge is very majestic, 50.82 meters long, 9.6 meters wide at both ends, slightly narrower in the middle, 9 meters wide. The design of the bridge is completely scientific, and the construction technology is even more ingenious. Zhang Jiazhen of the Tang dynasty said it was "a peculiar manufacturing, people do not know why it is". The characteristics of this bridge are: (a) the whole bridge is only one big arch, 37?4 meters long, at that time can be considered the longest stone arch in the world. Bridge hole is not ordinary semicircle, but like a bow, thus the big arch above the road without steep slope, easy to carriage up and down. (b) On the two shoulders of the big arch, there are two small arches. This creative design, not only to save the stone, reduce the weight of the bridge, and in the case of river floods, but also to increase the amount of water over the hole, to reduce the impact of flooding on the bridge. At the same time, the arch on the arch, the bridge is also more beautiful. (C) The big arch is put together by 28 arches, just like so many bows of the same shape are put together to make an arc-shaped bridge cave. Each arch circle can independently support the weight above, one is broken, the other channels are not affected. (D) the whole bridge structure is proportional, and the surrounding scenery with a very harmonious; bridge stone railings stone slab also carved ancient beautiful. Zhang Gull of the Tang Dynasty said, looking at the bridge from afar is like "the first moon out of the clouds, long rainbow drinking stream". Zhaozhou Bridge's high technical level and monumental artistic value fully demonstrates the wisdom and strength of our working people. Li Chun, the main designer of the bridge, was an outstanding craftsman, and his name is inscribed in the inscription at the bridge.

The Lugou Bridge over the Yongding River was built between 1189 and 1192 AD. The bridge is 265 meters long and consists of 11 semi-circular stone arches, each of which varies in length from 16 meters to 21.6 meters. The width of the bridge is about 8 meters, and the roadway is flat and almost parallel to the river. Between each two stone arches there are stone piers that link the 11 stone arches into a whole. As each arch is linked, so this bridge is called the joint arch stone bridge.

 Yongding River when the flood, very fierce, before the two banks of the river banks are often washed away, but this bridge has never had an accident, which shows that it is strong. The bridge surface with stone paving, stone columns on both sides. Each pillar is carved with different postures of the lion. These stone carved lions, some mother and son embrace, some head to ear, some like listening to the sound of water, some like watching the pedestrians, a thousand shapes and sizes, but exquisite.

As early as in the 13th century, the Lugu Bridge is famous around the world. At that time an Italian Marco Polo came to China, his travelogue, very high praise for this bridge, said it "is unique in the world", and especially appreciate the bridge column carved on the lions, said they "together constitute a beautiful spectacle. In China, this bridge has also been praised by people. It is located in the capital, and beautiful architecture, "Lugu Xiao Yue" has long been one of the scenic spots of Beijing.

Lugou Bridge is also memorable in the history of our people's war against imperialist aggression, which began on July 7, 1937, when the Chinese army fought against the Japanese imperialists.

Why do our stone arch bridges have such glorious achievements? First of all, it lies in the diligence and wisdom of our working people. Their craft of making stone is extremely exquisite, they can cut the stone into whole large stone monuments, and can carve the stone into various images. In the construction technology has a lot of creation, in lifting lifting more unexpected ways. Such as the Jiangdong Bridge in Zhangzhou, Fujian, built eight hundred years ago, some of the stone beam a piece of two hundred tons of weight, exactly how to install up, is still not fully known. Secondly, China's stone arch bridge design and construction has a good tradition, the completed bridge, material saving, structural ingenuity, high strength. Secondly, our country is rich in construction with a variety of stone, easy to take local materials, which also provides favorable conditions for the construction of stone bridges.

Over the past two thousand years, China has built countless stone arch bridges. After the liberation, the country large-scale construction of various types of road bridges and railroad bridges, including many stone arch bridges. 1961, Yunnan Province, built a world's longest single-arch stone bridge, named "Changhong Bridge", stone arch length of 112.5 meters. On the basis of the traditional stone arch bridge, we also built a large number of reinforced concrete arch bridge, including the "double bent arch bridge" is a new creation of our people, is the only one in the world. In recent years, the country has built a total length of more than 200,000 meters of this arch bridge, the largest hole, up to 150 meters. The leap forward of China's bridge industry shows the incomparable superiority of our socialist system.