Elisabeth Bridge: A 1960s Engineering Marvel in Budapest

I photographed this impressive bridge over the Danube in Budapest, in 2003. It was designed by engineer Pál Sávoly and opened in 1964.

I liked the wonderful contrast between the scale of the engineering and the two tiny pedestrians. They appear almost as silhouettes behind the railing, providing the human scale that tells us just how massive the structure is. The soft, grainy texture of the sky contrasts with the hard, repetitive geometry of the bridge.

As German forces retreated from Budapest at the end of the Second World War, the city’s Danube bridges were destroyed. Erzsébet Bridge was badly damaged, and unlike the other major pre-war bridges, it was not reconstructed in its original form. Instead of recreating the ornate 1903 structure, post-war Hungary chose a thoroughly modern bridge. Construction began in 1961, and the new bridge opened on 21 November 1964. It retained the approximate location and basic suspension principle of its predecessor, but otherwise represented a new technological and aesthetic era.

So the bridge in this photograph photograph is, in a sense, a 1960s vision of the future, photographed forty years later.