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With inspiring views of the Tennessee River and Lookout Mountain, the Holmberg Pedestrian Bridge artistically links a new public sculpture plaza on Walnut Street to the newly installed sculpture garden of the Hunter Museum of American Art. The bridge is an integral component of the city’s ambitious $120 million urban revitalization, 21st Century Waterfront Plan. Healing a previously severed condition, the bridge provides a connection above the traffic of Riverside Drive, allowing direct access between the Tennessee Aquarium with its 1 million visitors annually, to the Hunter Museum, Bluff View Arts District, and pedestrian green belt to the UTC Campus.

The bridge path is constructed of illuminated, laminated glass supported from below by faceted forms of poured concrete. Contextually, the geometry of these forms relate to the irregular angularity of the Hunter Museum’s new west addition, as well as the triangulated Aquarium roof. With an axial alignment between these two anchors, the bridge frames numerous vistas of the two iconic destinations. The piers were designed as contemporary interpretations of rock outcroppings, in contrast to the rational, trestle structure of the historic Walnut Street Bridge. Passing beneath the structure, the Riverwalk Esplanade provides an opportunity to experience the light, transparency and unique form of the bridge from below.

As much akin to a new acquisition by the city’s public arts program as to an engineering edifice, the pedestrian bridge creates an emotive, visual environment that beacons to a broader community. A bold urban intervention in the city, the Holmberg Bridge is a playful folly that can be experienced from above and below, as both a transitional space and a point of contemplation.