Henri Mallard Film
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is testament to the endurance and foresight of Sydney as a city to unite the northern and southern shores of the harbour, to present the lasting strength of infrastructure technology and to continue to influence and inspire society. It is also testament to the impact of engineering to go beyond being just its matter – in this case - a set of girders and bolts - and to become the symbol for a city and a nation.
The task of construction was formidable and it took nine years for the bridge’s completion - opening on 19 March 1932. At the time of its construction Sydney was still a comparatively small city and had a population that did not yet match the demand that the bridge’s wide six road lane and four railway deck would provide. It was only in 2012 with the construction of the Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver that the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s record as the widest long-span bridge was surpassed. The Sydney Harbour Bridge span in later times carries on average 160,000 vehicles per day compared to 11,000 in 1932. This excellence in design was able to recognise how vast the city was to become.
The Bridge stands today as an iconic landmark of the Sydney city landscape. The structure is an impressive 28-panel through-arch structure of 52,000 tonnes of steel joined by 6 million rivets (the largest weighing 3.5 kg and 40 cm in length). It is anchored by four 12 metre deep skewbacks beneath a pair of 89m high Moruya-granite-faced abutment towers. Its design and construction stand as milestones in engineering achievement and have been recognised as a National Engineering Landmark and an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
In 1930, as the two halves of the Sydney Harbour Bridge reached towards each other, Henri Mallard, a Sydney photographer, began filming the construction of the bridge. Allowed access to all areas of the site, Mallard filmed virtually every stage of the building process. The original black & white silent movie has been compiled with commentary by Frank Litchfield, one of the supervising engineers during construction to create this film for the 75the anniversary celebration of the opening.
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