10 London’s Fantastical Competition to Build Another Iconic Bridge

A space-age roller coaster. Another shunts pedestrians to arched walkways on the side, leaving the main expanse to bikes. There’s a perfectly minimalist band of metal, a waterfall-lined loupe, and a massive jumble of purple sci-fi spaghetti.

These are among the just a few of the striking candidates for London’s newest bridge.

London is a city of crossings. The River Thames cuts a snakelike path across the city’s belly, giving rise to bridges of all sorts—more than 200 today. They include the London Bridge, which dates to Roman times, though the most recent version was built in 1973, and the Tower Bridge, which is what most people probably picture when they hear “London Bridge.” The Millennium Bridge is a graceful ribbon of steel that spans the river between St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tate Modern. We’ll soon see the Garden Bridge, a controversial park-on-pylons designed by star architect Thomas Heatherwick. Its $270 million price tag has caused some amount of outrage; when it opens in 2018, it will be the most expensive footbridge ever built.

The Nine Elms to Pimlico Bridge competition gives us 74 new bridges to consider. The competition was commissioned by the London Borough of Wandsworth, which is seeking a “landmark” bridge to serve Nine Elsm, one of the city’s most rapidly changing areas. Formerly “a jumble of sheds,” it’s now “fast turning into one of the city’s flashiest residential districts,” The Guardian writes. As these things go, not everyone is thrilled with the prospect. Residents on the other side of the river, in Pimlico, are steadfastly against the bridge, claiming it would diminish cherished public space.