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| “What is essential
is invisible to the eye.” Novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1943 |
Reproduction
of Mona Lisa | In
the age of celebrity, invisibility looks like insignificance. In civil engineering,
however, invisibility is the badge of supreme achievement. Why? Turn the tap,
flip the switch, apply the brake—what is unseen is essential to your survival. Civil engineering infrastructure, the interconnecting networks of water, power, and transportation, become visible when they don't meet your expectations. Otherwise, they are like most bridges—you drive over them without even knowing they are there. Leonardo da Vinci, renowned painter and visionary engineer, placed a bridge behind Mona Lisa. Some scholars believe that it resembles the thirteenth century Buriano bridge over the Arno River in Italy. This structure was part of the “road of the seven bridges” that ended near Florence, where Mona Lisa was painted between 1503 and 1506. The bridge in the Tuscan landscape is hidden in plain sight. What symbolic meaning did Leonardo want this essential piece of infrastructure to carry? |
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