MILLENNIUM BRIDGE

Description

Essentials about Millennium Bridge in brief

Almost all tourists in London cross Millennium Bridge at least once during a visit to the British capital. Next to Tower Bridge, it is probably the most famous bridge in London. It connects the City of London on the north side with the district of Southwark on the south side and spans the Thames over a length of 325 meters. At the northern end of the bridge is St. Paul’s Cathedral, and at the southern end the Tate Modern gallery and Shakespeare’s Globe Theater are located.

The view from Millennium Bridge

The two special features of Millennium Bridge are its design and its orientation. It was designed to provide an unobstructed view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the south. For this reason, Millennium Bridge is one of the most popular photo locations for visitors to London. And because of the height restriction and to enhance the view, the bridge’s suspension cables are located next to the walkway, making the suspension bridge appear unusually flat.

The architecture of Millennium Bridge

Millennium Bridge was opened in 2000 (hence the name), but had to be closed to the public again two days after its opening due to uncontrolled, violent lateral swaying. Since then it has been nicknamed “The wobbly bridge” by Londoners. The cause of the fluctuations was the amplification of the bridge’s natural frequency for transverse vibrations caused by pedestrians. When walking across the bridge, people adapted to the vibrations and unconsciously tried to compensate for them with their own movements. However, this unintentionally led to an amplification of the bridge vibrations.

Millennium Bridge therefore had to be extensively renovated by installing a special damping system and could not be reopened to the public until 2002. Since then, however, it has been an absolute crowd puller and is only closed during heavy storms and for filming Harry Potter movies.