Millennium Bridge Newcastle, River Tyne Crossing Photos, Architecture, England, Images, Design

Millennium Bridge Newcastle : Gateshead Structure

‘Winking Bridge’, Gateshead, Tyneside, Northeast England design by Wilkinson Eyre Architects, UK

15 Jul 2004

Gateshead Millennium Bridge

‘Winking Bridge’, Gateshead
Date built: 2004
Design: Wilkinson Eyre Architects

This river crossing is a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge spanning the River Tyne in England. It spans this major English river between Gateshead’s Quays arts quarter on the south bank, and the Quayside of Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank.

Address: Baltic Square, S Shore Rd, Gateshead NE8 3AE, UK

Height: 50 m

Construction started: 1998

Opened: September 17, 2001

Architecture Practice: Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Project Architect: Keith Brownlie

bridge images © Adrian Welch

Millennium Bridge Gateshead was the winner of the prestigious British architectural award – the Stirling Prize in 2002, run by Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Engineers Gifford won the 2003 IStructE Supreme Award for this structure. In 2005 it won the Outstanding Structure Award from the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering.

It opened for public use in 2001. The structure was conceived and designed by architectural practice WilkinsonEyre and structural engineering firm Gifford.

The bridge is sometimes referred to as the ‘Blinking Eye Bridge’ or the ‘Winking Eye Bridge’ due to its shape and its tilting method. The Millennium Bridge stands as the sixteenth tallest structure in the city, and is shorter in stature than the neighbouring Tyne Bridge. Bollards installed to protect the structure from collisions were removed in 2012 to improve aesthetics.

Newcastle bridge photos © Adrian Welch