'The Øresund Link: Bridging Denmark and Sweden'
Georg Rotne, Architect, Associate Professor: School of Architecture,
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen

Review by Adrian Welch
Georg Rotne

Georg Rotne started the talk by showing us the Kylesku bridge in the (North-West of Scotland), maybe to form a link in our minds between Scotland and Denmark. The image was to be an important one as the slides focused in on the trusses of the Øresund Link Bridge: the same curvaceous form here repeated not four times, but around four hundred times. After some shots of Venice and Palladian bridges Georg went on to decry the predominating efficiency and economy of the Industrial Revolution bridges, by the likes of Brunel and Stevenson.

The Øresund Link was introduced with a map showing both Denmark and Sweden, followed by a breathtaking satellite photo of the Øresund: the scale of the undertaking was phenomenally large, ranking with Chek Lap Kok (airport) or the Great Wall of China. Georg was proud of the bridge's solidity and monumentality, not aspects much in vogue of late. He made some good points about the weakness of some of the other five competing consortia: Calatrava's three bridges were too detailed and focused on the 'ship' bridge forming just 1/8 of the link. Rotne maintained that the bridge will almost always be seen from the distance and should be designed with, 'simplicity, humanity and straightfowardness'.

Georg finished the lecture by answering a never-ending stream of questions, noting that one good aspect of the new link were the double-sized Schnapps measures now found in some København bars: Swedish measures!

Eighth Danish Cultural Institute Lecture: Øresund Link Talk: 27 Mar 2001 Edinburgh College of Art



Copenhagen Architecture
Danish Architecture - Ny Havnen Arkitektur i København
Jorn Utzon

Key Scottish Bridge: Kylesku Bridge, Sutherland
Georg Rotne designer / Ove Arup engineer, 1985



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