St. James's Bridge ( sl, Šentjakobski most) in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

is a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

that crosses the

Ljubljanica River The Ljubljanica (), known in the Middle Ages as the ''Sava'', is a river in the southern part of the Ljubljana Basin in Slovenia. The capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, lies on the river. The Ljubljanica rises south of the town of Vrhnika and flow ...

on the southern end of downtown Ljubljana, next to Zois Manor. It links Zois Street () and Karlovac Street (). The most important city traffic artery across the Ljubljanica runs across it.

Background

A wooden bridge was constructed at this place in 1824, later than other bridges of the period, and for a long time it was therefore called the New Bridge (german: Neue Brücke). In 1915, it was replaced by a

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

bridge by the engineer Alois Král and the architect Alfred Keller. It was described by the art historian

Damjan Prelovšek Damjan Prelovšek (born 18 February 1945 in Ljubljana) is a Slovenian art historian, and an expert on the architect Jože Plečnik. He was the Slovenian ambassador in Prague from 1998 to 2003. From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, he competed as a ...

as a "monumental neo-

Biedermeier The ''Biedermeier'' period was an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle class grew in number and the arts appealed to common sensibilities. It began with the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in ...

architectural language of late-

Secession Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...

Vienna." Since 1954, there has been a plaque with an inscription on the bridge about a 15th-century town

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

, which caused damage to farmers and was destroyed in the 1515 peasant revolt. Four bronze relief plaques depicting scenes from The Water Man, a Ljubljana-related

Romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

by the poet France Prešeren, were intended to be put on the fence of the bridge. However, this has been never realised.

References

External links

* Bridges in Ljubljana Bridges over the Ljubljanica Road bridges in Slovenia Center District, Ljubljana Bridges completed in 1915 20th-century architecture in Slovenia {{Slovenia-bridge-struct-stub