Samuel Beckett Bridge
Samuel Beckett Bridge opened in late December 2009 this bridge, built by internationally acclaimed artist, architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava, has become one of the most iconic fixtures on the Dublin city landscape. The design was inspired by the shape of a harp, found on the back of an Irish euro coin. Named after the Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett, the bridge took two years to build.
The bold design brings definition to the urbanscape – the shiny architecture of 21st century Dublin, the worn and warm buildings of yesteryear – the city is looking at itself. Yet, follow the curving pylon as it soars 48 metres above the river and the city opens to the heavens and to the sea. Here in the Docklands the destitution of man was, once, all too visible. Today, it is about that infinity of possibilities and the humankind vital to a city’s prosperity.
Dubliner Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1969 –‘for his writing which – in new forms for the novel and drama – in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation’.