A pedestrian bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci is to replace what has been called the ugliest bridge in Norway, according to the Norwegian highway department.
Akershus County, near Oslo, Norway, will spend between $500,000 and $1.4 million to build da Vinci's design near the town of Aas, where pedestrians currently use a concrete slab bridge to cross a two-lane highway, said Haakon Haaverson of the Akershus branch of the highway department.
Da Vinci's original 1,155 ft long design was commissioned in 1502 by Sultan Bajazet II of Istanbul. The bridge would have been the longest of its time, but the sultan did not believe it could be built. Oslo architectural firms Telje-Torp-Aasen and Knut Selberg have reduced da Vinci's concept to two scaled-down (190 ft long) designs, which resemble a double rainbow, in both wood and stone, Haaverson said. Both versions are faithful to da Vinci's original sketch, but the wooden version has a more open construction, he added.
The county is most likely to build the $500,000 wooden version, although the department will not make the final decision until later in the year, Haaverson said. If the wooden version is selected, the $1.4 million stone version will probably be constructed elsewhere in Norway, because the architects have already developed blueprints for it, he said.
The idea for the bridge came from artist Vebjoern Sand, who saw a scale model of da Vinci's design in 1995. The highway department agreed to build the design as soon as a suitable site was available, Haaverson said.
Quelle: Norway resurrects Renaissance bridge. Civil Engineering, Nov98, Vol. 68, Issue 11