Le Bridge

September 1, 2005 11:59 AM

Le Viaduc de Millau on the A75 between Clermont-Ferrand and Béziers in France is the world's tallest and most technologically advanced bridge. At 2,460m long and 343m tall, its multi-stayed spans are suspepended from seven pylons. It is not only an engineering marvel, but a work of art. It took 14 years of preparation, but the bridge was built in only 3 years. This film shows how it was built. Here is a live view from the webcam. Previous Metafilter discussion in August 2004 before the bridge opened in January 2005 here.
posted by three blind mice (13 comments total)

That's a very elegant design. Somebody needs to send this to Schwarzenegger, 'casue the new San Francisco bay Bridge design sucks.
posted by JParker at 12:23 PM on September 1, 2005

wow. I love how well it fits into the scenery, like it was left there by the Romans or something. Very interesting.
posted by the theory of revolution at 1:23 PM on September 1, 2005

I gotta agree with jparker - elegant. Cool little movie too, thanks!
posted by jamesonandwater at 1:24 PM on September 1, 2005

If I didn't already know it was real, I could swear that all the photos of it are photoshops of a fake bridge. Wow
posted by cleverusername at 1:29 PM on September 1, 2005

Pretty spectacular. The Tour de France had a stage that crossed it, then I caught a History Channel show on its construction.
posted by fixedgear at 2:04 PM on September 1, 2005

What a waste of public money - why didn't they just cut a road down one side of that valley and back up the other...? [Kidding! Just kidding!]
posted by twsf at 2:05 PM on September 1, 2005

Glad that some people are now calling it the world's "tallest" bridge, not the "highest" which is Royal Gorge.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 2:17 PM on September 1, 2005

Yeah! The French are interested in creating things that work and they need, they are not going out and offering to kick the assess of other peoples and bulling everywhere and later say: "Oop's, that wasn't a good idea, we better get out of there" and I also like FRENCH FRIES. Good for them!
Let's all of us try to get back America to it's greatness by building good things here too.
posted by CRESTA at 2:37 PM on September 1, 2005

What a waste of public money - why didn't they just cut a road down one side of that valley and back up the other...? [Kidding! Just kidding!]

Dude, if Bush built that bridge that would be the exact content of three blind mice's post. No joke.
posted by shoos at 2:59 PM on September 1, 2005

I heard that the bridge is sinking because the builders didn't take into account the weight of the books cars.
posted by hammurderer at 3:54 PM on September 1, 2005

It's beautiful, but I still don't trust French engineering.
posted by ParisParamus at 4:43 PM on September 1, 2005

...I still don't trust French engineering.

Some of their work seems to be holding up pretty well...
posted by cenoxo at 5:58 PM on September 1, 2005

Thanks, three blind mice. I've been meaning to check out that film.
posted by shoepal at 8:39 PM on September 1, 2005