The bridge that was finished before it ever crossed the river

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge connects Gateshead's south bank to Newcastle's Quayside across the River Tyne. It is a pair of steel arches — one carrying the footpath and cycleway, the other a supporting parabolic arch whose crown stands about 50m above the river in the closed position — tied together by supporting cables and pivoting together around a shared springing point. When it opens, the entire structure rotates through 40 degrees: the curved deck rises while the supporting arch moves downward. It has been described as the world's first tilting footbridge, and it has since been nicknamed the Blinking Eye. The rotation is driven by an electro-hydraulic system combining electric motors and six hydraulic rams, three per side — public accounts describe both eight motors and six rams as components of the same system, though the precise motor-to-ram configuration isn't something the sources reviewed for this issue establish. The rotation completes in as little as four and a half minutes, depending on wind speed.

The main steel superstructure was not assembled at the crossing. It was fabricated at Watson Steel's works in Bolton, then shipped to AMEC's works at Hadrian Road in Wallsend, six miles downstream of the final site. There, the main steel superstructure was assembled as a single unit — both arches, the deck, the supporting cables, coated in weather-resistant paint — before it was transported across the river it was built to span. The concrete piers themselves, with foundations extending to approximately 30m, were built at the crossing site itself, ahead of the superstructure's arrival.

The steel superstructure was built everywhere except where it needed to stand.

On 20 November 2000, the finished assembly was carried by Asian Hercules II — described by Gateshead Council as Europe's largest floating crane at the time, a vessel of 10,560 GT — that is the hull's gross tonnage, not its lifting capacity, which is rated at 3,200 tonnes — with lifting legs over 350ft tall — six miles up the Tyne. Gateshead Council records that the deck had to be turned sideways to pass the river's bends; secondary accounts of the project, including the bridge's Wikipedia entry, put that rotation at 90 degrees. At the site, it was lowered onto the two piers, which Gateshead Council reports came to rest with around 2mm to spare.

The completed bridge underwent its first public tilt on 28 June 2001, watched by 36,000 people on the banks. It opened to the public on 17 September 2001 and was formally dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II on 7 May 2002. It went on to win the RIBA Stirling Prize (2002) and the IStructE Supreme Award for Structural Excellence (2003), recognising the design. The erection method that got the superstructure into position in one piece is a separate story from the design that won those awards.