Commissioned by Bolton Council
Artist: Liam Curtin
The constraints of the site required a bridge that could be assembled on site. Liam worked with local residents and volunteers from the Manchester Bolton and Bury Canal Society who were eager to take on the task of building their own bridge. The idea emerged of building the bridge from scaled up Meccano. This trick of scale satisfied the art element and so a bridge design became very basic, a straightforward truss bridge, there was no need to embellish the structure with decoration. The use of familiar “found” objects (Meccano Parts) at an unexpected scale became the art’s content. A scale of 1:10 was chosen.
During a cold dry week in December 2012 volunteers bolted the structure together. The work was carried out in an amiable and co-operative manner.
For further information read The Story of The Meccano Bridge, presented here as a PDF. And check out the video underneath the images slideshow below.
