The world’s oldest surviving truss bridge was minutes away from becoming nothing but ash and charcoal floating down the Reuss. In 1993, a devastating fire tore through Lucerne’s Kapellbrücke, threatening to erase a masterpiece of medieval engineering that had stood since 1333. For a structure that pioneered the strutted timber truss—a triangular design so stable it changed how we bridge the world—watching its 17th-century paintings and ancient beams collapse into the water was a soul-crushing bl