Maria Pia Bridge
Encyclopedia
Gustave Eiffel
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French structural engineer from the École Centrale Paris, an architect, an entrepreneur and a specialist of metallic structures...
in Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. Built of wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...
, its two-hinged crescent arch used to carry the railway, before a modern bridge was constructed in 1991, to Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
for 353m across the River Douro
Douro
The Douro or Duero is one of the major rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, flowing from its source near Duruelo de la Sierra in Soria Province across northern-central Spain and Portugal to its outlet at Porto...
at a height of 60m.
Eiffel's design was the least expensive of eight entries into an 1875 competition, being 31% less than the next lowest priced. The bridge was built to avoid a 12 km detour, and started on 5 January 1876 and completed on 4 November 1877. At that time its span of 160m was the longest arch bridge in the world, the previous record holder, at 156m, being the Eads Bridge
Eads Bridge
The Eads Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, connecting St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois....
over the Mississippi
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
at St Louis. The bridge was opened by the king of Portugal
Luís I of Portugal
|-...
and named after his queen Maria Pia
Maria Pia of Savoy
Maria Pia of Savoy was a Portuguese Queen consort, spouse of King Luís I of Portugal. On the day of her baptism, Pope Pius IX, her godfather, gave her a Golden Rose. Maria Pia was married to Luís on the 6 October 1862 in Lisbon...
.
In 1991 the bridge was superseded by the new St John (Ponte de São João) bridge, designed by engineer Edgar Cardoso
Edgar Cardoso
Edgar Cardoso was a noted Portuguese civil engineer and university professor. In Portugal, Edgar Cardoso was a pioneer of experimental analysis of structures and of high precision instruments development for measure mechanical sizes in the little models and in his own works.-Early life:Cardoso...
.