Design
Center Proposes Bridge Color Schemes
The City Paper
By Colleen Creamer
October 01, 2001
The Nashville Civic Design Center is recommending an idea to the Mayor’s
Office that would dramatically change the look of six Nashville bridges
that cross the Cumberland River.
The design includes a red-and-silver theme for all bridges and lighting for the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge. The bridge would be lit from the ground in a variety of colors. “ If you wanted to light the bridge in red or green for Christmas or red, white, and blue, you can” Design Director Mark Schimmenti said. “You can change the lights to celebrate different things.” Schimmenti presented the idea last week to the Mayor’s Office, MDHA, the Planning Department, and Public Works.
Last spring, the Metro Department of Public Works asked the public to help pick a color for the 550-foot arch of the Gateway Boulevard Bridge, which is in its first phase of construction, and put a ballot on its website. “Blue and silver were very close,” said Public Works spokesperson Roxanna Pierce. “There wasn’t much distinction but green lagged way far behind. ”Schimmenti said when he later met with Patrick Willard, senior policy advisor for Mayor Purcell, Willard suggested factoring in all of the bridges.
The Center, said
Schimmenti, then did “exhaustive
research” on
the history and past color of local bridges.
“
There is absolutely no tradition of bridge color in Nashville, ” Schimmenti
said. “We were hoping to find something so we could tie
it back to tradition.”
When designers began
to factor in reflection on the water, Schimmenti said, and that each
bridge had two views – one from below and one from
the top – a theme began to fall into place, a stronger
color on the bottom. In researching the
bridges of other cities, Schimmenti said they found out that red bridges
were
rare.
The recommendation was silver on top and red on bottom
for the Gateway Boulevard Bridge, the Woodland Street Bridge,
the Victory
Memorial
Bridge, the Jefferson Street Bridge and the CSX-owned railroad
bridge because
red reflected on the river more prominently.
For the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge, Schimmenti suggested flipping the colors and putting silver on bottom and red on top because the silver would better reflect color of the ground lights. “ When we put it on [the model] here, we realized it worked really well,” Schimmenti said.
The largest factor in choosing red, he said, was finding a brand that didn’t fade because the life span of dark colors is roughly three years. With a more expensive type of paint the design center is recommending, the life is longer. “ When you paint the bridge, you are looking at 20-25 years before you have to paint it again,” Schimmenti said.
Ava Philson of the Mayor’s Office said that although the Civic Design Center had not submitted a final recommendation, the Mayor believed they “were on the right track.”