Arup on winning team for Rhine Bridge Competition - Mittelrheinbruecke
Arup Consulting Engineers with heneghan.peng.architects travelled to Berlin last week to accept an award as winners of the competition to build a bridge across the UNESCO-protected Rhine Valley - the Mittlerheinbrücke.
The 460m-long road bridge (main span 160m) crosses the River Rhine, downstream from Mainz in Germany. This part of the Rhine Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the client has been looking for the most appropriate design to take through stringent planning procedures.
Linking the towns of St Goar und Sankt Goarshausen, the bridge will be situated near one of Germany's most hallowed sites: the "Loreley" rock on the eastern bank of the river named after the Rhine Maiden who, legend has it, lured sailors here to their doom.
The plans will travel to Berlin and then, in June, to UNESCO in Seville. The UN cultural agency bestowed world heritage status on the Loreley in 2002.
The design for the new crossing is a low, thin, horizontal structure, which minimizes the total visual impact along the river corridor. The challenge was to design a functional bridge that impacted as little as possible on the famous valley: visible yet invisible.
Please contact Holger Falter for further details.