The Bavarian capital of Munich has launched a new format for art in public spaces. All works of art in the "Carte Blanche" series will be temporary installations, each financed with €250,000 by the City of Munich. Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima and their team from the internationally renowned architectural office Atelier Bow-Wow Tokyo were the first to design a work of art in that art series. "Bridge Sprout", in German 'Brücken Spross', was developed in cooperation with the Munich architects from the Hannes Rössler office and the cultural department. The work of art at the river Isar on the "Schwind" island will be open to the public until the end of 2021. The wooden bridgehead will be dismantled again after that date.
The construction of the bridge, designed by Atelier Bow-Wow, was implemented by a planning office that made use of the architectural planning feature provided by the SEMA Program. For production, the wooden elements had been pre-milled cylindrically before they were produced on a Hundegger joinery machine. Since the construction was to be designed without visible girders or steel elements in order to retain a natural character, a sophisticated construction was necessary. Each slot and drilling hole had to be precisely planned and manufactured with millimetre precision so that all elements fit together perfectly. At the same time, however, the structural safety requirements had to be complied with, just as with a continuous bridge. Since the art object will be dismantled at the end of 2021, the designers decided against the use of a foundation so that the bank along "Widenmayerstraße" can then be restored to its original state.
After all the wooden parts had been manufactured, the individual wooden elements could be assembled by the Holzbau Schmid company in their workshop in "Trostberg am Chiemsee" and, fully assembled, transported to downtown Munich. The bridgehead was erected using a truck crane. This operation had to be carried out in just one night and completed before the start of rush-hour traffic, as "Widenmayerstraße" was closed for the transport and installation.
The art object is a free-floating bridge - but it is not a continuous bridge, it is rather a six-metre-long bridgehead, which hovers nine metres above the small Isar. On the opposite side, the conceptual line of the bridge was continued with a wooden platform on the bank of the "Schwind" island. "Schwind" island is a nature reserve, but is freely accessible to the public.
The accessible bridge element rewards visitors to "Prinzregentenstraße" with a great view of the "Friedensengel" monument on one side of the Isar and the impressive building of the "Maximilaneum" on the other side. The bridge artwork is less intended to be a connection between "Widenmayerstraße" and the island, but rather to provide visitors with the experience of unusual perspectives in urban space.