Building the Bridge by CURTIS, R. E - 1933

Sydney: Simmons Ltd, 1933. First Edition. Robert Emerson Curtis. "MAKE Big Plans ; for little plans have no magic to stir men's blood and in themselves may never be realised. Make Big Plans ; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your Watchword be Order and your Beacon Beauty." Daniel H. Burnham The Plan is accomplished. The Bridge is built-the greatest Single-Arch in the World to-day. A landmark in the progress of our age-a symbol of faith in a young and virile nation. To the Engineer and Workman and to all those who have helped the Big Plan forward this book is respectfully dedicated. FOREWORD: "The Sydney Harbour Bridge, so long a dream, is to-day a bold and practical reality. A triumphant arch of steel, humanising our landscape in the Ideals of all true Australians, simplicity, beauty and service. It was a Big Plan ; the thoughts and strivings of many men. Its success lies in the loyalty of Engineers and Workmen to the Ideal of the Big Plan. Inch by inch, step by step, they built the Bridge, until to-day it is finished, a work of service, a thing of beauty, which will assert itself long after we are gone. In the following drawings, Mr. Curtis tells you something of the magnitude of the work that lay before the Builders. When an important stage in the construction had been reached, when the subject was "meat" for his pencil, whether by accident or design, he would invariably be seen, somewhere, "on the job." In these drawings are expressed the strength, the labour, the romance of a great undertaking." J.J.C. Bradfield. Signed first edition, limited to 400 copies; this copy is number 86. Bound in red, black and silver decorated boards with cloth spine, twelve black & white lithographs, one tipped-in colour lithograph, a fine copy.