Highway bridges
Lombardia Pedemontana Highway, Italy
2007
Competition
Adda River
The designs for the Pedemontana Highway bridges over the Adda and Lambro rivers address a necessary landscape and environmental rehabilitation of the territory. Their geographical scale approach aims at developing engineering works that can be perceived as monumental landmarks and provide a new identity to the respective sites.
Two highway bridges and a railway bridge are developed over the Adda river valley.
The bridges comprise pointed arches with a 70 m span, altogether articulated into three arches with 180 m spans.
Natural light penetrates below the decks through the gap between the bridges, while the rhythms of the load-bearing frames open perspective views, filtered by the repetition of the arches that create a new "scenery" on the site.
The pointed arches explicitly reference the vertical rationality made of structure and light typically expressed by Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture.
The pointed arches are articulated by a staggered rhythm that creates a complex spatial sequence. The expressive quality of their shapes gives the three bridges the image of a huge open air cathedral.
Unlike the sequence of suspended and independent bridges over the Adda river, the bridge over the Lambro river is developed close to the ground in order to reduce its impact on the landscape.
The lowered railway line, partly covered by a man-made gallery, leaves the highway bridge free to maintain its own horizontal line, slightly raised from the river's bed to keep the underside watertight.
Lambro River
The bridge over the Lambro river wants to show how engineering can be enriched by its greater architectural adherence to the spirit of the place. Unlike the monumental crossing of the Adda which builds a sort of "structural cathedral" in the great void of the river bed, in this case the bridge presents the characteristics of a plastic remodeling of the site. Its framing in the context is in fact guided by choices aimed primarily at restoring a compact and integrated morphology to the orography. Instead of emphasizing the voids with suspended and autonomous structures, the bridge rests on the ground to reduce its presence in the landscape.
client:
Autostrada Pedemontana Lombarda S.p.a
SPEA Autostrade spa
architectural design: Quattroassociati
The bridge over the Adda river is 1,050 m long
The bridge over the Lambro river is 228 m long
Bridge over Adda river
Bridge over Adda river
Bridge over Lambro river
Bridge over Lambro river