Monday, September 12, 2011

Rail Bridge Photograph - UVA Corner


I’m intrigued with urban and suburban “landscapes.”  These are almost always unintentional in design. They are the convergence of growth and necessity. We are a people interested in getting from A to B in the shortest time.  After going that route enough times, we cease to even notice it. We are the in-between people, always headed somewhere else.
    So, when it comes to design, we are masters of the unintentional.  This is a section of the overhead railway over the “Corner” adjoining the campus of UVA, the intersection of 14th St. and University Ave.  It feels like Brooklyn for about 15 feet as you pass under the bridge.  There’s a tree top in the distance visible above the wood railway timber. If this were a painting, that would represent nature.  Historic photographs of Charlottesville (Google “Holsinger photographs”) seem to show this bridge, although it’s a bit difficult to say for sure it’s the same structure.