Bridge Postcards of 2021

There are 14 postcards in the 2021 survey of bridge themed cards.  Two have a story of renovation to tell.  The deck of the Union Chain Bridge that has spanned the river Tweed between England and Scotland since 1820 was removed in its entirety in March 2021 for rebuilding and although work has slipped behind schedule should be re-installed by late spring in 2022.  The Pont de Cubzac truss bridge was redesigned by Gustave Eiffel in the 1870s and crosses the Dordogne river a few miles north east of Bordeaux. It was the subject of a major restoration project in 2016-17 that extended its carrying capacity without compromising its appearance.  There’s a card from Minnesota that illustrates the consequences of careless navigation and the resulting destruction of the Interstate Bridge on Lake Superior that happened on August 11, 1906.  Other examples of American bridge building come from Portland Oregon, Poughkeepsie on the Hudson river and Davenport Iowa.  From Paris we have a card of the Pont d’Austerlitz - elsewhere in France there are bridges from Lyon, Nancy and Dinant. British examples come from the river Tyne (Newcastle Swing Bridge) and the river Teign (Shaldon Bridge, Teignmouth).  Finally, two from Germany - Holtenau is near Kiel and Höllental Viaduct is in the Black Forest.

 

Postcard of the Day No. 105, Paris - Halles Centrales

Few districts of Vieux Paris have been so frequently romanticised as Les Halles, the city’s produce market that was unceremoniously demolished in 1971 and relocated to the suburbs at Rungis.  For more than a century the market was housed in a series of twelve interconnected glass and cast iron pavilions (designed by Victor Baltard) but in the era of the vainglorious Georges Pompidou these masterpieces from the age of cast iron architecture were all too easily swept aside in favour of a meretricious and soulless shopping centre that was so unloved that it had to be replaced in less than three decades.  The exuberant vitality that had inspired Emile Zola to write “Le Ventre de Paris” (1873) was lost forever. A significant working class population would be relocated and never again would the neighbouring streets resound with the noise of thousands of heavily laden trucks, trolleys and trailers battling for space - one of the great urban spectacles would be totally erased.  These were unnerving times for Parisians who sought to defend their city from the intrusion of grossly inflated modern development. To the south the 56 floors of the Tour Montparnasse were already rising out of the ground and in the west the high-rise blocks at La Défense were taking shape.  A vocal campaign to preserve the Baltard pavilions sadly failed thanks to the prevailing infatuation with ostentatious modernism on the part of the ruling Gaullist politicians.  Minor concessions were made in the form of enhanced outdoor public space (now the rather dispiriting Jardin Nelson-Mandela) but the scheme progressed largely unamended. The black and white photographs were taken on a trip to Paris in 1974 when it seemed there would be no end to the excavation that had followed the ignoble demolition of Les Halles - it would be another 5 years before this vast hole in the landscape would be filled up with a grandiose interchange between the Métro and the RER and a depressing subterranean retail concrete box.

 

Postcard of the Day No. 93 – Panorama du Carrefour du Châtelet

Gridlock by the banks of the Seine, conflicting traffic flows observed from above. Horse drawn vehicles and open-top limousines compete for road space while Parisians circulate at will, oblivious to the confusion. Seen from on high, interlocked vehicles form a pleasing abstract composition but there’s little of the extreme visual drama that Soviet photographer, Rodchenko obtained from his vertiginous photos of Moscow trams. Meanwhile in Chicago, below, we have another spectacular vision of traffic mayhem – overloaded trucks and columns of streetcars jostle for position. Mounted police officers observe but don’t intervene – pedestrians cluster on the street corners, few are brave enough to take their chances in the traffic.

City Buses on Postcards

The development of motor vehicles happened in the era of the vintage picture postcard. Horse-drawn omnibuses gave way to petrol powered vehicles and major cities rapidly built up extensive networks of routes. Each of these portraits from Europe and North America seem to reflect the national characteristics of their homelands. Parisian buses came furnished with a fussy Gallic scalloped fringe to the protective roof canopy as well as some fashionably fancy coachwork. At the other extreme is the utilitarian no-frills Detroit bus where the passengers are exposed to the elements via the unglazed windows. The sole grace note being the provision of highly polished brass light fittings. The Berlin bus has the feel and solidity of well-made furniture while the London bus is conceived as a mobile display of public information. Appropriately for a city famous for criminality, the Chicago bus is built like a military vehicle – it’s easy to imagine armed guards on every other seat. In comparison the Manhattan bus appears slender and restrained.

Paris with Chocolat-Menier

A postcard trip around Paris with Chocolat-Menier, France’s best known chocolate brand. There’s a Menier-related feature smuggled into every example of these promotional items. It might be a poster, a delivery vehicle, an illuminated sign or a Morris column. The views are usually conventional tourist hotspots with an occasional diversion to lesser attractions such as the cattle market at La Villette or Place Daumesnil. They are hand-painted in a casual brushy style with a taste for dramatic weather effects and night skies. Over a hundred were issued in the series which expanded to include les Environs de Paris. For a description of a visit to the Usine Menier at Noisiel, please follow this link.

Lion de Belfort

The world population of carved lions must rival that of the living and breathing variety. An association with nature at its most powerful and ruthless is universally desired by princes and tyrants. Despite occupying the summit of the food chain, the lion is routinely identified with superhuman courage and stamina unlimited. When the French nation was absorbing the humiliation sustained during the comprehensive military defeat at the hands of the Prussians in 1870-71, the heroic resistance of the French troops and local volunteers at the Siege of Belfort was a rare instance of successful defiance and quickly became an essential national story. In the interest of salvaging some vestige of national pride the event was celebrated by commissioning a massive carved lion to adorn the rock-face outside the town of Belfort. The work was carried out by Frédéric Bartholdi and completed in 1880. Bartholdi was the foremost monumental sculptor of his age and would become world famous for his carving of the Statue of Liberty. A more modest version of the Lion of Belfort was installed in a major street intersection to the south of Montparnasse that takes its present name (Place Denfert-Rochereau) from the name of the French commanding officer at Belfort. As the access point for the Parisian Catacombs, Place Denfert-Rochereau was formerly known as Place d’Enfer. Thus it could be renamed with minimal disruption.