London architects Studio Bednarski have completed one high-profile European bridge and won a competition to build another, with their founder telling CLAD that both will be agents of urban reinvigoration.

The £10m (US13$m, €11.6m) sliding Inderhavnen Bridge in Copenhagen has finally opened to the public after a five-year construction period beset by delays and the bankruptcy of the first contractor.

The architects said “quiet sophistication and grace of motion” were the key drivers for their design. The 180m (590ft) long bridge’s sliding mechanism allows pedestrians to stand on viewing platforms at the edges of the navigation channel during the opening and closing operation, which takes less than one minute. The sliding sections of the bridge have been designed to appear as if they’re floating in the air as they move in and out of spaces between concrete decks.

The crossing – funded by the AP Møller and Chastine McKinney Møller Foundation – is the key component of a scheme to link the two parts of Copenhagen separated by the port, creating new pedestrian and traffic links and facilitating further regeneration.

“I am so glad the despite all the adversities that this project has had to overcome, it is there and proving to have been so needed by the people of Copenhagen,” studio founder Cezary Bednarski told CLAD. “This urban acupuncture needle hit just the right spot. For me, it is like God breathing life into Adam in the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, because it is breathing new life and facilitating new dynamics in Copenhagen.”

Studio Bednarski have also been named the winners of a contest to design a new opening pedestrian bridge for Gdansk, Poland, which Bednarski said would have a similarly dramatic impact on the city by creating a new tourist destination.

Located next to Europe’s oldest and largest surviving port crane, completed in 1444, the bridge will cross the Motlawa river to an island ruin from the Second World War.

The main deck of the bridge has been conceived as an abstract object, but Bednarski said inspiration for the project has come from sources as diverse as a bird with spread wings to the shape of a tomb for the crew of a Polish submarine lost in action during the war and never found.

Bednarski said: “Our aim was to align the design of the new bridge with the dynamics of the city, endowing it with unequivocal and explicit identity, all born exclusively of its functionality and structure, without any decorations. Drawing from the Baltic traditions we sought to optimise functionality, and not allowing the bridge to become a manifestation of an extravagant structural form.”

Construction on the Gdansk bridge will begin next year.