Issue 7_Focus from the AOP_July 2026_FINAL - Flipbook - Page 60
TAMARA STUBBS
THE GAP BRIDGE
The Gap Bridge is a photo-essay book documenting the complete story of an extraordinary
footbridge - from its conception as a radical commission for Burning Man, through a pandemic that
stalled it for four years, to its eventual construction over a river in the Canadian wilderness in May
2025.
The bridge was designed by Richard La Trobe-Bateman, now in his late eighties, one of Britain's last
designer-makers working in the tradition of St Martin's under Anthony Caro and the Royal College of
Art under David Pye. Over a sixty-year practice spanning furniture and footbridges - with work held by
the V&A and public collections internationally - he has built more than thirty bridges, each resolved to
the point where nothing can be added or removed. The Gap Bridge is among the most ambitious: two
mirrored cantilevers of cedar and galvanised steel, rising at fifteen degrees to a gap the crosser must
physically bridge at the apex.
Photographer Tamara Stubbs began documenting the project in 2017, working in RLB's Somerset
workshop as the original Burning Man commission took shape. The book follows the full arc: drawings,
models, the drive across the Rockies, five men, four days to hand-build the bridge in British Columbia
- in black and white throughout.
T
he Gap Bridge is lithograph-printed and stitched-bound by Empress, a London print house, in a first
edition of 500 copies.
You can view the project, order the book, or watch a short film of Richard talking about the Gap
Bridge at:-www.tamarastubbs.com/thegapbridge
www.tamarastubbs.com/thegapbridge
@tamara_stubbs
© Tamara Stubbs
