I love spontaneous conversations

I was so tired in Dresden (23000+ steps as measured by a student's pedometer--over nine miles!) that I sat down on the edge of a fountain to rest in the shade outside of the castle, looking at the Zwinger and the Semper Oper, and looked over a information sheet about the city's layout as seen from the top of the Frauenkirche.  The gentleman next to me asked if I had any questions, since he was an engineer and bridge architect for the city.  What luck!  I asked him about the controversy about Dresden's new bridge, which caused it to LOSE it's UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.  It is made of grey and bright blue stiped steel.  Here is an image of the bridge from the planning stages:

The city lies to the left of the imageMost of the bridge is done, and it really doesn't fit with the Baroque nature of the city.  So here's the scoop:

1. the people of Dresden voted to build a new bridge--needing an additional passage across the Elbe
2. the politicians then selected a design (a "big mac" type design)--the people had no say in the design, so it was all politics
3. UNESCO knew Dresden would be getting a new bridge before specific plans were made, and granted the city the designation
4. when UNESCO saw the design, they warned that it would interfere with the designation and wanted to talk about alternatives (different design, a tunnel, etc.)
5. No! (the politicians)

Now the bridge does not yet have the arches added, and the drawing above is not what it will look like.  According to my resting engineer/architect neighbor, the arches will be mounted completely on the top of the bridge, and will be very high, not down to the river as was shown in the initial images.  His opinions:
1. the residents will be very unhappy with the bridge when done
2. the politicians responsible will be out of office, and
3. Dresden will have an eyesore of a bridge and is no longer a UNESCO world heritage site.
4. The politicians must be reined in (too late for this project), because they really want to develop the waterfront right to the water with shops and condos (boy does this sound familiar), even though engineers have warned that they must maintain the flood plane (the Elbe floods relatively often, the last time being 2006, when the entire city lay under water, as well as most areas from Dresden north to Berlin).

We had a great conversation, until his travel partners told him to stop working and get up to go for food.

Interesting side note: Our bus tour guide noted the bridge, now under construction, and told us how good it would be have this bridge, mentioning that she is very much for the project.  Wish I had talked with this man before we had the tour.