‘The most beautiful bridges in the world are Golden Gate and Széchenyi Lánchíd’
Aarne Jutila’s work has taken him all over the world, yet he is very keen on his good relationship with Hungarians. The Finnish professor received the Adam Clark Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Bridge Builders’ Conference in Siófok, and Magyar Építők sat down for an interview with him at the event.
Having participated in the creation of more than 140 bridges in Finland, Dr. Aarne Jutila has the experience and the reputation of a true bridge designer, an engineer at heart. Born in 1940 in Helsinki, he became interested in bridges at a very early age: he read an article in Readers’ Digest by an American bridge engineer when he was only 16 years old. The article put him on a path to bridge construction which he has followed ever since. He recalls that the entrance exam to the technical university was very hard, but he managed to get in and started to study civil engineering.
At the end of his studies he decided to write his diploma work about a very special, 40 meters span concrete arch bridge over a river. This one-hinge bridge called Hämeensilta is the only one of its kind in Finland and very rare in the world as well. It is located in the city center of Tampere, 170 km north of Helsinki, and was opened to the public in February 1928. Drawings of the bridge were available but the calculations had been lost, and it was unsure whether it was strong enough to support the heavier traffic of the 1960s running over it. This was the task that started Mr. Jutila’s career and tied it to bridges forever. ‘I spent a long time analyzing and examining the old bridge, standing on pieces of floating scaffolding underneath it for two weeks while I made drawings of each visible crack’ – he remembers.
After finishing university in Finland, he continued his studies in Switzerland – he was granted a scholarship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) by the Swiss government, after which he went on to work at Kjessler & Mannerstråle Ab in Stockholm, Sweden. He soon returned to Finland and worked for various firms and organizations, including the National Road and Waterway Administration. Even though his employers quickly realized his worth and tried twice to put him in a leading position, Mr. Jutila always refused. ‘And I’m very glad I did’ – he adds. ‘I always wanted to be an actual engineer and do the work myself.’ Besides the designer work, he taught at the Helsinki University of Technology for over 30 years, first as assistant and laboratory engineer, and then as Professor of Bridge Engineering for 24 years.
Record breaking and climbing to the top
Ten years after the first bridge in 1976, Mr. Jutila completed the design of a four-span river bridge, where a 37 years old steel girder bridge’s superstructure was replaced by a new-type multi-girder prefabricated concrete element bridge using the existing supports. The old bridge was only 11 meters wide while the new superstructure was 24,5 meters, which means that it became 2,2 times as wide as before, which is a record in Finland even today. ‘We managed to do it on the old supports, and it was even 30% cheaper than estimated’ – says Mr. Jutila, smiling. This bridge is called Valkeakosken Isosilta and it is located in the city center of the industrial town Valkeakoski. The bridge competed to the very end with the first nuclear power plant in Finland for the title of Civil Engineering Structure of the Year, but the 50 times more expensive power plant won.
He also took part in the design of a 350 meters long multi-span prestressed concrete motorway Sipoonlahti Bridge, 30 kilometers east of Helsinki. It was a new type of double girder slab bridge without any cross beams in the spans. It was the most costly bridge of its time in Finland, and the construction method was unique as well.
The Sipoonlahti Bridge in Finland
In 2000 Aarne Jutila was a member of a Finnish team of six engineers who took part in the international design competition of the Stonecutters Bridge in Hong Kong. ‘There were 28 interested teams, out of which 16 were accepted to make a proposal. Only five proposals were chosen for the final stage, and one of them was ours’, says Mr. Jutila with great satisfaction. All five winning teams were invited to Hong Kong, where the winner was announced. Even though the Finnish team did not win (they came in fourth place), the experience with all the best designers in the world was already a great prize.
More than 80 visits to Hungary in 30 years
Even though Mr. Jutila’s work has taken him across all five continents, the relationship between Hungarians and Finns has been very important for him for over 30 years. ‘The famous Hungarian professor Tassi Géza visited Finland in 1987 as part of a professor exchange program, and at the time I was Professor of Bridge Engineering at Helsinki University of Technology. We liked each other right from the beginning and had a lot to discuss’ – says Mr. Jutila about how it all began.
In November of the same year Mr. Jutila also visited Hungary for the first time, he came to sign a contract on behalf of the Finnish Association of Civil Engineers, then his second visit happened in May of 1990, when he was invited by the Budapest University of Technology(BME). After that, his visits became more frequent as he started cooperating with BME and Hungarian engineers. He became doctor honoris causa of BME in 2002. To this day he has visited Hungary more than eighty times and travelled across the country to multiple cities like Győr and Pécs. He has also had many Hungarian students in Finland.
At the Bridge Builders’ Conference held earlier this month in Siófok, Mr. Jutila was given the Adam Clark Lifetime Achievement Award by the Hungarian Bridge Builders’ Association, which was a great surprise for him, he admits.
The newest chapter of his cooperation with our country is that he is on the international board of juries for the design of the Galvani bridge soon to be constructed in Budapest. ‘I really hope that it will be a great bridge’ – he adds.
Complicated bridges are being built, so engineers should understand the basics
In the Finnish designer’s opinion, the most interesting part of bridge construction is the creative, innovative first part, when there is just an open place, like a river, and the bridge must be built. ‘I always say that engineers should not start by deciding whether it should be a steel, concrete or timber bridge. Instead, make an overview and go through all the different possibilities, all possible types of bridges and spans. Only then comes the decision of what material is most suitable for that kind of bridge. This is such a creative thing, like when an artist begins their new piece. The bridge designers must also use their imagination.’ After a while he adds with a smile that ‘the completion is another interesting part because the possibility of collapse is always there.’
We asked Mr. Jutila for his opinion about the present development of bridge building, which he says is very quick. ‘Very large bridges are being built and new structural types are being created for that reason. The designers are trying to find new, aesthetically pleasing shapes, too.’
And what about young engineers starting out in the field of bridge construction? They should study the basics very well, the professor emphasizes. ‘Mathematics and Mechanics are very important. Nowadays young people cannot calculate in their head, they always use calculators or computers. They also tend to create very complicated structures without understanding the physical behavior of them. Don’t just put numbers into a computer program, because you will have no idea whether the results are correct or not! This isn’t just a bridge-related problem.’
Bridges should be built for the next generations
When asked about bridge construction in Hungary, the professor’s answer is two-sided: he praises the beautiful and large bridges on the Danube and Tisza, but he adds that the pre-fabricated, concrete element ones crossing the motorways are not pleasing. ‘This is just the same as in the USA: the aim was to build cheap and quickly, yet the result will stand there for decades or for a hundred years. Hopefully new bridges will not be designed like that.’
‘I really admire the Széchenyi bridge’ – he continues. ‘I have been asked many times which bridges I think are the best in the world and I always say the Golden Gate in San Francisco (which I have been on three times) and Széchenyi Lánchíd in Budapest. It is so well balanced, and it is wonderful when it’s lit up at night with the castle in the back.’
