An artificial wonder of the world"This bridge needs neither praise nor eulogies. It speaks for itself. We who have worked for a long time are grateful. What nature tore apart long ago, man has rejoined today.” This is a quote from Joseph Strauss, the engineer who designed the Golden Gate Bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge is truly a work of engineering excellence. It extends nearly 9,000 feet above San Francisco Bay in San Francisco, California. The bridge faced many problems during the design and construction process, and even today it causes controversy. The end result of the bridge, however, is an astonishing feat of engineering that will last a long time. To begin with, in 1916, James H. Wilkins came up with the idea of ​​connecting the San Francisco Peninsula to the rest of Northern California. After eight years, the United States War Department approved the bridge project. Four years later, Joseph Strauss was appointed designer of this new bridge (“Golden Gate Bridge Fast Facts”). In short, Joseph Strauss was a structural engineer who studied at the University of Cincinnati. Strauss had already built hundreds of drawbridges, but he wanted to build "the greatest thing of its kind that a man could build." Therefore, when Strauss was approached to design a bridge that would span the Golden Gate Strait, he was very enthusiastic ("American Experience"). Strauss originally wanted the bridge to be a hybrid cantilever suspension design. However, this design was not immediately accepted. Over a four-year period between 1925 and 1929, and through extensive consultation with the Engineers' Advisory Board, the bridge was revised to become a suspension bridge only. The main reason for this is probably Léon Moisseiff...... middle of article ......icanexperience/features/biography/goldengate-strauss/>.Bateson, John. “The suicide magnet that is the Golden Gate Bridge.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2013. Web. April 4, 2014. “Golden Gate Bridge Construction Timeline.” Internet. April 4, 2014. “Golden Gate Bridge Design.” Internet. April 4, 2014. “Golden Gate Bridge Fast Facts.” CNN. Cable News Network , January 1, 1970. Web. April 4, 2014. .Lamb, Robert and Michael Morrissey. "How Bridges Work.". 2014. .