Construction of Renzo Piano-designed Genoa Bridge reaches milestone

2020-02-19T15:01:00-05:00

The last of the 18 piers that will support the new Genoa bridge in Italy has been completed less than eight months after construction of the first foundations began. [...] Ten of the sections of the deck that will rest on the piers have been installed so far; the current deck length of 550m is more than half of its eventual 1,067m length.

43 people were killed and 14 more injured on August 14, 2018 when the nearly mile-long Morandi highway bridge in Genoa partially collapsed. Architect Renzo Piano, a Genoa native, was commissioned to design the 1,067-meter replacement bridge, and construction work started in June 2019.

The 18 bridge piers each rise 40 meters (131 feet) high, with their foundations sunk 50 meters (164 feet) underground. Workers will now continue to raise the remaining bridge spans.

Video via Salini Impregilo's YouTube channel.

"Above ground, they all measure 9.50 metres by 4.0 metres in order to guarantee a uniform perspective to the structure as well as to quicken the pace of its construction with the use of the same type of external formwork for every pier," explains a statement released by Salini Impregilo, the contractor building the bridge together with Fincantieri as the joint venture, PerGenova. "The piers are elliptical in shape, allowing the light to slide off the surface and soften the visu...

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Construction of Renzo Piano-designed Genoa Bridge reaches milestone