High Steel: Building the Bridges Across San Francisco Bay

Chronicles the planning, development, and construction of the San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, two works of architectural and engineering genius built during the 1930s

Two of San Francisco's most famous landmarks are the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, which connect the city with Marin County to the north and Oakland to the East. While Richard Dillon finds the Bay rather conventional-looking, he is unreserved in his admiration for the Golden Gate: "Its soaring grace actually enhances the beauty of its natural setting, something which man- made objects rarely do.... The largest work of art in history, dwarfing such an example of combined art-and-engineering as the Eiffel Tower, it is the greatest sculpture ever dreamed."

To support Dillon's bold assertion, Don DeNevi has selected photographs of the bridges' construction in the mid-1930s taken by Moulin Studios (with help from Thomas Moulin, grandson of the studio's founder, Gabriel). It is these stunning images that make up the bulk of High Steel, chronicling the gradual process by which the naked landscape of the San Francisco Bay was transformed. From vast panoramas to close-up images of construction workers precariously balanced hundreds of feet above choppy waters, these photographs are almost as much of a marvel as the bridges themselves.