Delight

Architectural Review, The, June, 2005 by Tony Hunt

MILLAU BRIDGE JOINS THE LINEAGE OF AWESOME EUROPEAN VIADUCTS.

I remember very clearly the first time I saw a model of the Millau Viaduct. It was at the MIPIM property fair in Cannes four or five years ago, where there was a competition to guess the total length of the cables which, surprisingly. I won. It was, even as a model, incredibly impressive.

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The six lane cable-stayed road viaduct sets a number of benchmarks. It is, for instance, the highest bridge in the world. The spans are an amazing 350m each and the maximum concrete pier height is 235m, with an additional 90m of steel mast above the isotropic steel box-girder deck. This deck is supported by an array of steel cables which fan out from the masts. Just to add to the superlatives, it is 2.5km long, curving across the Tarn Gorge on a new section of the A75, the route between Paris and Beziers in the south of France.

The viaduct is incredibly slender, the design an elegant combination of a brilliant engineering concept by Michel Virlogeux (the engineer who designed the amazing Pont de Normandie across the Seine at Le Havre) and inspired design by Foster and Partners, aided by a number of European engineering groups.

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Construction was very complex. Among other advanced techniques, special tall temporary steel towers were erected between piers to assist in launching the road decks as cantilevers before connecting to one another. Millau is in the tradition of the great European viaducts by Robert Maillart and Christian Menn, but on an even larger scale. It is a triumph of modern technology and construction and an example of the best collaboration between engineering and architecture.

I'm visiting the south of France later this year and, though it will mean a detour from my usual route, it will be a thrill to see such an exciting example of engineering and architecture and then drive over it.