Ponte di Calatrava

Venice's new bridge across the Grand Canal

ABOVE: This November, 2007 photo shows the bridge's prefabricated sections in place, with final construction proceeding bit by bit.

January 28, 2008: After several years of construction delays, Venice is finally getting closer to having a fourth bridge across the Grand Canal. The new bridge, the Ponte di Calatrava, was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, whose past projects have included the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain, the Olympic Sports Complex in Athens, and the precedent-setting "twisting torso" skyscraper in Malmö, Sweden. (Calatrava was recently the subject of an exhibition titled "Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture" at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

In January, 2007, construction crews began driving piles for the new bridge in the Canale Grande between the Piazzale Roma and the Santa Lucia Railroad Station. The bridge's prefabricated sections were floated to the construction site by barge in August. Some progress had been made on final assembly when the photo above was taken in November, 2007, but the latest word is that the bridge may not be completed until well into the spring of 2008.

When it's eventually finished, the new bridge will be a long, sweeping curve of glass and steel that should fit in with both the historic buildings on the Piazzale Roma side of the canal and the 1950s modernity of Venice's main railway station. It will also be convenient for travelers, who'll no longer have to go out of their way to cross the canal via the Ponte dei Scalzi or pay to ride the vaporetto.

The bridge has provoked its share of controversies, including concerns about the bridge's accessibility to locals and tourists in wheelchairs. (The city has promised to install "egg-shaped lifts" for the disabled, but whether they'll be more reliable than Venice's existing platform lifts is unknown.)

Related link:

Il projetto del 4° ponte sul Canale Grande
The text of this article is in Italian, but the drawings show the new bridge's design and location.

Also see:

Ponte di Calatrava - Grand Canal Bridge Videos

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