Bridges+Presentations

__**VASCO DA GAMA BRIDGE **__



 It’s located in Parque das Nações (Park of Nations). It's located on the east of Lisbon, which was the poor side of the capital at the early nineties, full of abandoned containers, slaughterhouses, garbage depots, junkyards, refineries and gas terminals, in short, a dilapidated area with a terrible need of redevelopment. Transforming this public dump into a quality area, decontaminating 330 hectares of land and cleaning up 5 kilometers of river front took four years.

 Vasco da Gama Bridge crosses the Tagus River (Rio Tejo). It opened a second north-south passage and is part of a new way to get to Spain.
 * **LOCATION**:

 It is a cable-stayed bridge: the longest in Europe and one of the largest of its kind.  total length of crossing: 17.2 km  length of marine viaduct: 9 km  length of the cable-stayed main arch: 826 m (192 cables)  navigation deck clearance: 47 m above water level on the North Channel  reinforced concrete structure with main deck stayed to main pylons  central H-shaped pylons are 155m high
 *  **STRUCTURE**:

 In April of 1994, Lusoponte, a group of Portuguese, British and French companies won the international allowance to design, construct, finance and operate the new passage, the Vasco da Gama Bridge. In February of 1995 was the beginning of the construction and in March of 1998 it was opened to traffic. In 2000 it was award first prize by the Ibero-Americana Institution of Architecture and Civil Engineering
 * **BACKGROUND INFORMATION**:

__**SOLKAN BRIDGE **__

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<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> World’s largest arch bridge of worked stone. It was constructed in 1905. It was designed by Rudolf Jaussner and constructed by Leopold Orley.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Its construction was because of the need for additional railway connection between Vienna and Trieste.

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<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">It is over the river Soča near Nova Gorica in western Slovenia.
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**LOCATION**:

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> With an arch span of 85 metres it is the second longest stone arch in the world and the longest stone arch among train bridges. It was built in the time of the Secession, between 1900 and 1906. <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> It is built of 4533 stone blocks.
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**STRUCTURE**:

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> On July 19, 1906, the railway from Jesenice to Gorizia was completed and the Austrian heir Franz Ferdinand travelled across the bridge. In 1916, during the first world war, the Austrians destroyed the bridge as they left Solkan, so that the invading forces couldn't use it. After the war the Italians first built a steel construction where the bridge once stood and in April 1925 started to build a new bridge, which was finished in 1927. This bridge was very similar to the first one, with the exception of having only four sub-arches instead of the original five. During the second world war the bridge suffered only minimal damage from bomb attacks, which the Germans repaired in a few days.
 * **<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">BACHGROUND INFORMATION: **

(Information from WIKIPEDIA)