The BP Pedestrian Bridge, or simply BP Bridge, is a girder footbridge in the Loop community area of Chicago, United States. It spans Columbus Drive to connect Maggie Daley Park with Millennium Park, both parts of the larger Grant Park. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry and structurally engineered by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it opened along with the rest of Millennium Park on July 16, 2004. Gehry had been courted by the city to design the bridge and the neighboring Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and eventually agreed to do so after the Pritzker family funded the Pavilion.
The BP Bridge viewed from The Buckingham in Lakeshore East (June 12, 2008)
Gehry designed both the bridge and Jay Pritzker Pavilion with curving stainless steel plates.
The bridge is a noise barrier along the eastern edge of Millennium Park, with the Historic Michigan Boulevard District in the background.
Crossing Columbus Drive, the bridge is supported by a central concrete column. (from Randolph Street)
A footbridge is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians. While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a height above the ground", a footbridge can also be a lower structure, such as a boardwalk, that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. Bridges range from stepping stones–possibly the earliest man-made structure to "bridge" water–to elaborate steel structures. Another early bridge would have been simply a fallen tree. In some cases a footbridge can be both functional and artistic.
Women heading to market across a footbridge in Nahulingo, El Salvador
A footbridge in Shaharah District, Yemen
Stepping stones, across the River Rothay, in the Lake District, England
A footbridge seen in Walbridge Park, Toledo, Ohio, 1895