Wednesday, February 4, 2009














China, it seems, can't build fast enough or big enough or big enough these days, be it new airport terminals, dams, buildings for the olympics, coal fired power plants, or bridges. In fact, last week China opened the world's longest sea bridge, spanning 22-miles across Hangzhou Bay, linking Shanghai and Ningbo, an industrial city. The previous, an industrial city. The previous record holder was the 20.2-mile long Donghai bridge, which links Shanghai and a port by the name of Yangshan.





















Here we were thinking that minesota's next-gen St. Anthony Falls Bridge was kicking up the next generation of mega engineering a notch from even the quake-proof Bay Bridge Skyway. But leave it to Dubai to build it way harder, faster and stronger-or, at least in the case of this newly approved design from New York's Fxfowle architects, way cooler.

As if the Burg Dubai tower wasn't already taking the worldwide skyscraper race to new heights, this as-yet, 
this as-yet-unnamed span will be the world's largest arch bridge, with 2000 vehicles set to cross its 12 lanes—per hour, in each direction—when it's slated for completion in 2012. At 670 ft. tall, Dubai's next super structure will stand higher than the George Washington Bridge (604 ft.) but fall short of San Francisco's existing Golden Gate Bridge (746 ft.).