Pont Simone Veil
Concrete-and-steel river crossing engineered as Europe's widest bridge deck, doubling as a public esplanade.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Pont Simone Veil in Bordeaux starts with what you're standing on: lanes for cars, space reserved for a future tram, and fifteen meters of pavement built for nothing but walking, all by design. It follows the Rotterdam firm OMA's 2013 winning proposal to reject monument-making, and the engineering underneath it, piers driven twenty-seven meters into the Garonne on piles wider than any built before in France. Along the way it tracks years of contractor disputes and a budget that climbed well past its original estimate before the bridge finally opened. Look down at the seam where the concrete deck meets its steel girders.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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