Field notes · Nº 13 2 min read Building things that last

The Brooklyn Bridge opened on 24 May 1883, before Karl Benz had patented his motor car.

By Pallav Sharma · Co-founder & CTO
Six parallel strands hang in a deep curve between two anchors on a dark background: the lowest strand is grey, the five above it are gold, and a gold bracket beside them reads '×6'. Labels: 'What 1883 required' and 'What Roebling built'. Headline: 'A margin is a gift to people its builder will never meet.' Pallav Sharma, www.pallavsharma.com.

In 2019 it carried more than 120,000 vehicles a day.

John Roebling designed it to be six times as strong as he thought it needed to be. He died in 1869, almost fourteen years before it opened.

A margin is a gift to people its builder will never meet.

Whose margin are you still standing on?

Going deeper

The Brooklyn Bridge opened on 24 May 1883, after more than a decade of construction. John A. Roebling, who designed it, died in July 1869, and his son Washington Roebling carried the work through to the end.

Roebling designed the bridge to be about six times as strong as he believed it needed to be. On paper, that looks like caution. I see something larger in it: a builder who accepted that he could not know what the future would ask of his work, and chose to answer generously anyway.

Nobody in 1883 could have described the traffic the bridge carries now. Karl Benz’s patent for his motor car is dated 29 January 1886, almost three years after the opening. By 2019 more than 120,000 vehicles were crossing the bridge every day. The structure was not designed for them. It was designed with room for them.

That is what a margin really is. It is the part of a piece of work that serves no one on the day it is finished. It costs more, takes longer and earns no praise at the opening. Its whole value arrives later, for people the builder will never meet, in conditions the builder could not imagine.

Great builders seem to understand this by instinct. They build for the life of the thing rather than for the moment of its launch. The result is work that keeps giving long after its makers are gone, and that quietly sets the standard for everything built after it.

Every field has a few creations like this: a bridge, a building, a body of knowledge or a well-made tool that is still doing its job decades after anyone expected it to. Look closely and there is almost always a person behind it who chose to give more than the moment required.

A margin is a gift to people its builder will never meet.

Sources

Wikipedia: Brooklyn Bridge · Baruch College: The Brooklyn Bridge · STRUCTURE magazine · NBC New York: The bridge that made New York · Structurae: John A. Roebling · Autocar Pro: 29 January 1886