“London Bridge 2/5”

The subject

When the Bridge Opens

The wonder of Tower Bridge is that it moves. Its two great roadway leaves still tilt up to the sky to let ships through — and this second sheet in the series is about that drama.

The two halves of the roadway — the ’bascules’ — were originally raised by steam-driven hydraulics; today the power is electric, but the movement is the same, and the bridge still opens around eight hundred times a year.

The two towers are not just decoration: they carry the machinery and the high-level walkways that let people cross even while the road below is lifted for a ship.

I leaned the drawing into that sense of movement — the span caught mid-gesture, the river busy beneath.

Red for the towers, a deep blue for the Thames, the ink line taut as the rigging of the ships it was built to admit.

Second of five — the same bridge, caught in the act of being a machine.

See also · London London Bridge 1/5 · London Bridge 3/5 · Small London