Leonardo's "Golden Horn" Bridge, Aas (near Oslo), Norway

Leonardo's "Golden Horn" Bridge, Aas (near Oslo), Norway

Designed in 1502 by Leonardo da Vinci to span the "Golden Horn," the famous waterway in Istanbul that separates Europe and Asia, the stone bridge was never built because the Turkish sultan feared that it was not technically feasible. A scaled down, laminated wood and stainless steel version based on the famous artist's original plan is now a footbridge near Oslo, Norway. "For 500 years the beauty and symbolism of this graceful bridge remained an obscure drawing in one of Leonardo's notebooks, until it was brought into being in Norway in 2001 by the contemporary artist Vebjorn Sand," according to the website of The Leonardo Bridge Project, a global public arts project. Built in collaboration with the Norwegian transportation ministry, the bridge was the first civil engineering idea by Leonardo to be realized.