Bridge over Dřetovický stream

The footbridge over the Dřetovický stream in Vrapice near Kladno is located on the walking path from the village to the cemetery. It is set in a remarkable natural context, which to some extent replaces the urbanized public space in the village. The landscape around Vrapice is geologically very interesting, including deposits of fossilized shark teeth. The meadow around the footbridge is often flooded, and the landscape in the immediate vicinity of the footbridge is characterized by both constant human interventions and relative wildness, determined by the ongoing changes due to floods. The footbridge is conceived in a higher sense as a magical portal between the world of the living and the dead, or as a numinous object from Cosmic Odyssey. It is made of high-strength frost-resistant UHPC concrete class C110/130 with dispersed reinforcement. The unique architectural design explores the boundaries of lightness and subtlety of the footbridge, artistically based on the allure of black, technologically extremely advanced material. The structural solution for a span of 10 m with a rise of 0.4 m suitably utilizes the double curvature of the footbridge's geometry, stabilizing the structure in both key directions and allowing for simple bracing of the footbridge's railing. The cross-section of the footbridge has a width of 1.5 m. The volume of material used is 1.4 m³, and the weight of the footbridge is approximately 3.5 t. During the verification of the properties of the construction and the casting technology, a prototype was created, which was subjected to load tests. The material is colored throughout, surface patinated through acid etching, and in key details hand-finished. In contrast to the footbridge, a statue titled "Guardian" created by sculptor Prof. Jan Hendrych is placed. Professor Hendrych is among other things a leading expert on baroque sculpture placed in the context of bridges and landscapes and their plastic modeling. The statue is inspired by original baroque prototypes (e.g., John of Nepomuk), positioned within a composed landscape, and complements the overall spatial composition of the bridge. A key compositional theme here is also the concept of the bridge as a pedestal or spatial context for the statue. The statue is made from a material analogous to that of the bridge.