Vizcaya Bridge
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Vizcaya Bridge | |
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Coordinates | 43°19′23″N 3°01′01″W / 43.3231°N 3.0169°W |
Crosses | Nervión |
Locale | Portugalete-Getxo (Biscay), Spain |
Characteristics | |
Design | Transporter bridge |
Material | Iron |
Total length | 160 m (520 ft) |
Height | 45 m (148 ft) |
History | |
Architect | Alberto Palacio |
Engineering design by | Ferdinand Arnodin |
Construction end | 1893 |
Europe and North America | |
Official name | Puente de Vizcaya |
Type | Non-movable |
Criteria | Monument |
Designated | 17 July 1984 |
Reference no. | RI-51-0005163 |
Location | |
The Vizcaya Bridge (Bizkaiko Zubia in
People in the area, and even the official website, commonly call it the Puente Colgante (literally "hanging bridge", used for suspension bridge in Spanish), although its structure is quite different from a suspension bridge.
History
The Vizcaya Bridge was built to connect the two banks which are situated at the mouth of the
The service was only interrupted once, for four years, during the Spanish Civil War, when the upper section was dynamited. From his house in Portugalete, Palacio saw his masterpiece partially destroyed just before his own death.
Universal Heritage
On 13 July 2006, the Vizcaya Bridge was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. In Spain, it is the only monument in the Industrial Heritage category. UNESCO considers the bridge to be a perfect combination of beauty and functionality. It was the first to use a combination of iron technology and new steel cables which began a new form of constructing bridges which was later imitated throughout the world.
Operation
The bridge, still in use, is 164 meters long, and its gondola can transport six cars and several dozen passengers in one and a half minutes.
It operates every 8 minutes during the day (every hour at night), all year round, with different fares for day and night services, and is integrated into Barik card system. An estimated four million passengers and half a million vehicles use the bridge annually.[1]
There are two new visitor lifts installed in the 50-metre-high pillars of the bridge that allow walking over the bridge's platform, from where there is a view of the port and the
Architecture
The structure is made of four 61 metre towers which are the pillars and stand on the river banks. The towers are braced by iron cables to the crossbeam and are parallel to the river and by cables following the line of the bridge into the hill behind (on the Portugalete side) and the ground (on the Las Arenas side). The upper
Construction
The structure is 45 metres high and 160 metres long. In the final design it was decided to use two horizontal
Image gallery
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Closeup of the gondola.
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The shuttle.
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The bridge emerges from the fog, view from Portugalete.
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Looking north, from the bridge,Las Arenas.
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Looking south, from the bridge,Las Arenas to the left, the Estuary of Bilbao, and Portugaleteto the right
References
- ^ Chu, Nick. "Vizcaya ("Hanging") Bridge: Half Gondola, Half Bridge, 100% Awesomeness". The Gondola Project. Retrieved 26 November 2013.