Assut de l'Or Bridge

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Assut de l'Or Bridge
Pont de l'Assut de l'Or
The Assut de l'Or Bridge in Valencia, Spain
A view of the Assut de l'Or Bridge with L'Agora in background
Crosses Turìa Gardens (former riverbed of Turia River)
Locale Valencia, Spain
Characteristics
Design cable-stayed bridge
Total length 180 metres
Height 125 metres (making it the highest point of the city)
Number of spans one with 29 cable stays
History
Architect Santiago Calatrava
Construction cost 59.9 million Euros
Inaugurated 12/12/2008

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The Assut de l'Or Bridge (Valencian: Pont de l'Assut de l'Or, Spanish: Puente de l'Assut de l'Or) is a dazzling white single-pylon cable-stayed bridge, designed by Valencian architect and civil engineer Santiago Calatrava, and completed in December 2008. The name l'Assut de l'Or means the Dam of the Gold and refers to a dam that was formerly located nearby - although locally it is referred to as "El Jamonero" (The Ham Holder)!

L'Agora and L'Assut de l'Or Bridge, with its cable stays, are two parts of Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences complex
File:Valencia E PM 052103.jpg
Back stays of pylon to concrete counterweights in roadway

The bridge[1] (crossing the Turìa Gardens) is located in central Valencia, Spain in its City of Arts and Sciences[2] complex, which also includes a science museum (Museo de las Ciencias Principe Felipe[3]), a covered plaza for concerts and sporting events (L'Àgora[4]), the 3rd largest aquarium in the world (L'Oceanogràfic[5]), a multifunctional arts complex and opera house (Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia[6]) and, planetarium and Imax (L'Hemisfèric[7])

The design of the bridge is a mini-variant of Santiago Calatrava's pioneering 1992 design of a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge in Seville, Spain. In this bridge, the pylon is curved backward and also back-stayed to concrete counterweights in the roadway. The bridge deck is supported by 29 cable stays and has two carriageways with three lanes each, one additional lane for a tramway and another for pedestrian and cycle traffic, this last in the middle of the deck by the cable stays. Although the cables and pylon are essentially in one vertical plane (see photos on left), because of the curvature of the pylon, there might be an optical illusion when the bridge is view from the side (see photo on right) that the pylon and the cables appear to be not planar.

See also

File:Dublin Samuel Beckett Bridge 08.JPG
The curved Samuel Beckett Bridge pylon is also back stayed
  • Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin, Ireland, in which the forward curved pylon is also back stayed.
  • The Erasmusbrug in the Netherlands, another single pylon cable-stayed bridge in which the pylon is back stayed.

References

  1. Info Loko site.
  2. Info loko site on City of Arts and Sciences.
  3. Info loko site on Museum of the Sciences.
  4. Infoloko site on Agora.
  5. Info loko site, on aquarium.
  6. info loko site on palace of sciences.
  7. info loko site on planetarium.

External Links

L´Assut de l´Or Bridge, Valencia, Spain (2009), Luis Viñuela y José Martínez Salcedo