St. Patrick’s Bridge Opens East Village to the Northern Calgary

A new era has begun at East Village! St. Patrick’s Bridge, now open for use, has connected the once secluded downtown community to the northeast inner city area and also to the up and coming public space of St. Patrick’s Island.

Designed by RFR/Halsall, the “skipping stone” bridge takes its look from both natural and urban environments. At night, imbedded lights inside of the walkway railings shimmer with varying brightness, creating a very cool “water” effect along the ground, while underneath the water of the Bow River is lit up by another set of colored lights.

See for yourself what the recently completed St. Patrick’s Bridge is all about in this video below, courtesy of East Village:

[pb_vidembed title=”Bridge to the Future: Celebration” caption=”Courtesy of East Village” url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJbmSCO5vTs” type=”yt” w=”560″ h=”385″]

Apart from what we learned in the video, here are some more cool facts on St. Patrick’s Bridge:

Quick Facts

• Design competition began in 2009

• Attracted 33 conceptual submissions from firms around the world

• Over 2,000 comments from locals were considered by Calgary Municipal Land Corp. (CMLC)

• Final design choice made on March 16^th, 2010

• Architecture by joint winners RFR (Paris, France) and Halsall (Calgary)

• Steel bridge components fabricated by ADF Montreal Inc.

• Steel beams of 16 to 20 metres in length, weighing between 70,000 and 200,000 kg each

• Welded together with the assistance of a massive 250-tonne crane

• No bridge structure in the river bed itself, increasing resistance to ice flows and floods

• What people see in the bridge design: a skipping stone, rolling foothills or Chinook arch

Interested in future projects at the up and coming festival and cultural hotspot? See everything else there is going on down at East Village Calgary today!

Join Us

Looking for some of the best local activities, events, restaurants and more of everything else to do with the wonderful city of YYC?

If so, all you have to do is give us a like at Calgaryism on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and you’ll automatically stay updated via your live social media feed with all this and more! We hope to see you there!