The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Bay Bridge that never was

Curbed San Francisco ^ | December 8, 2017 | Brock Keeling and Alex Bevk

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in June 2012 and has been updated with the most recent information.

After the construction of the Bay Bridge in 1933, San Francisco began considering duplicating the bridge and running a second one further south across the bay. Enter Frank Lloyd Wright, a little-known architect whose idea and design for a second Bay Bridge never came to fruition.

The noted architect hated the idea of a second steel structure similar to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. Partnering with engineer Jaroslav J. Polivka, Wright proposed a concrete "Butterfly Bridge,” spanning from Army Street (now Cesar Chavez) and Third Street to its eastern terminus on Bay Farm Island, just north of the Oakland Airport.

Wright and Polivka saw steel truss bridges as extravagant and obsolete, so the design was all reinforced concrete, resting on a series of giant hollow almond-shaped piers—which they claimed to be earthquake-proof construction. Long curved arms would carry six lanes of traffic and two pedestrian walkways, supported by two arches connected by a butterfly-shaped garden park (!) as “a pleasant relief and perhaps a stopping point for the traffic.”

During a May Day appearance at San Francisco Civic Center in 1957, Wright unveiled his bridge to the public for the first time. His presence at the event, sponsored by the city’s Planning and Housing Association, drew a rapt, large crowd. Men standing before model of proposed "Butterfly Bridge" by Frank Lloyd Wright. Photo via SF Public Library

The San Francisco Chronicle (via Frank Lloyd Wright and San Francisco) described the event:

[Covenantor]

"School children in 1953 look at Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Butterfly Bridge” model, with two spans running side by side." Photo via SF Public Library

[DownInFlames]

Looks like the bridge from Die Hard

[Cicero]

Don’t let Jerry Brown see this.

[thinden]

Wow

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Made out of teakwood, plate glass, and field stone?
 

[Behind the Blue Wall]

A southern crossing between San Francisco and the East Bay is long overdue. For the cost of the earthquake retrofit of the Bay Bridge it could’ve been done, saving billions of hours of congestion. Nothing that rational can happen anymore in California unfortunately.

[USNBandit]

lol!

[Slicksadick]

You’re right, it is.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Tolerance Sucks Rocks.

Enter Frank Lloyd Wright, a little-known architect

...who was already 66 years old or turned 66, in 1933 -- so, contrary to what the article sez, he wasn't little known and suddenly got discovered by SF. It must have been scrawled by a typical journalist of our time. It's particularly ironic, considering that one of his, to that time, internationally heralded work had been in Japan, and badly damaged by an earthquake in 1923.

[VanDeKoik]

LOL!

It’s the one reason why I have a love-hate view on Wright.

Incredible designs, but seriously some of his material usage (overuse) is stifling.

[freepertoo]

It’s beautiful.

[Fred Hayek]

Frank Lloyd Wright had no grasp of structural loads. It was a good thing his design wasn’t built.

[Nifster]

FLW had some of the most interesting designs

[trisham]

Agreed.

[healy61]

I never understood the phrase that a man was ahead of his time until I visited the Meyer May house in Grand Rapids. Fell in love with the style then. I have owned a prairie style duplex for 30 years. Didn’t understand what it was and why it was special for many years. I don’t know who built it in 1905.

[SoCal Pubbie]

That’s what the engineer is for.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Die Hard contains two nods to the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright: (1) The Nakatomi offices are designed to look like Wright’s Falling Water, and (2) the scale model of a bridge that Hans admires in front of Takagi is a scale model of a design for a bridge over the San Francisco Bay. (Source)

https://www.shmoop.com/die-hard/trivia.html

[Bobalu]

In the original "Blade Runner" Deckert lives in a house in LA designed by FLW.

[Flick Lives]

Frank Lloyd Wright had no grasp of structural loads. It was a good thing his design wasn’t built.

---

True. He was an architect and not an engineer. I've heard some of his designs could only now be actually constructed with materials or systems that would not have been available in the 1950's. His design for a mile-high skyscraper, "The Illinois", has always been one of my favorites of his unbuilt designs.