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That the metal bridges built in the United States during the last two or three decades are, with rare exceptions, anything but models of excellence in respect to the principles of aesthetics, no engineer is likely to deny. For this the principal reasons are as follows:
First. Very few technical schools in this country instruct their engineering students at all in architecture; and not one of them gives to that important branch of constructive engineering the attention it merits.
Second. As most American enterprises are consummated with a small amount of money compared with what might be spent advantageously in their materialization and completion, there are seldom any funds to employ in decorating the work.
Third. American engineers, as a rule, appear to regard with more or less contempt all efforts to ingraft architectural ideas upon engineering construction. While the engineering profession is only too ready to criticise architectural construction because of its numerous violations of the principles of engineering practice, it does not appear to see that the converse of the proposition holds good, viz., that the architectural profession has good reason to criticise severely engineering construction in general because of its numerous and glaring violations of the principles of architecture. Moreover, in no branch of engineering are such violations so common and so pronounced as in that of bridge building.
Fourth. But the chief factor, the one which has had more bad influence than all the others combined, is the custom of letting bridges upon competitive designs and awarding the contract to the lowest bidder.
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