Colbert Bridge

Colbert Bridge

Architectural lighting for the Colbert Bridge, the last hydraulic swing bridge still in service in France, protected as a historic monument and returned to the water after two and a half years of restoration. Built in the late 1880s to cross the basin and link Dieppe to the Pollet district, the structure pivots on itself to let ships through: it is that movement, not the silhouette alone, that makes it singular.

The lattice trusses are lit in a cool light, against the grain of their own structure, so that the drawing of the metal reads as open work; the deck and the walkways take a warm light, grazing and low, that guides the crossing without glare. A blue line underscores the pivot circle and recalls, at night, the movement the structure was built for. Carried out for Ports de Normandie.

A steel bridge lit head-on loses everything that distinguishes it from a wall: the lattice fills in, and the transparency disappears. The opposite choice is to light the structure from behind and from below, so that every bar stands out against the void rather than against the light. Seen from the quays, the bridge then reads as a drawing laid on the water, and the articulation between the deck and its turning circle can still be made out after dark.