When
it was built in 1901 the Dragon Bridge boasted the third largest arch in
Europe built to the Melan System, named after the Austrian engineer, Josef
Melan. The ‘Melan System’
used rigid truss arches made of iron, rather than the French ‘Monier
System’ in which iron bars were built into the reinforced concrete
bridge. Melan System bridges
became popular, particularly in the USA and Germany, because bridges could
be built without a supporting stage.
The load-bearing core of the bridge during construction were the
truss iron frames. After
concreting these became a part of the supporting structure.
The
most important decorations on the bridge are the four dragons standing on
pedestals at its four corners. These
dragons are the dominant architectural decoration of the bridge (the
dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana) and because of them, shortly after it
was opened, the bridge lost its official name ‘The Jubilee Bridge of the
Emperor Franz Josef I’ and was unofficially renamed the Dragon Bridge.
Now, the bridge’s original name has faded into oblivion.