The Schwandbach Bridge is a deck-stiffened

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

arch bridge An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its structural load, loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either si ...

near

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, designed by

Robert Maillart Robert Maillart (16 February 1872 – 5 April 1940) was a Swiss civil engineer who revolutionized the use of structural reinforced concrete with such designs as the three-hinged arch and the deck-stiffened arch for bridges, and the beamless f ...

and completed in November 1933 at a cost of 47,298 CHF.

Design

The bridge has a main span of 37 metres, and a total length of 55.6m. The arch is

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

al rather than curved, and is only 200 mm thick.Billington, 1990, p.66 It supports the bridge deck via 160 mm thick reinforced concrete cross walls. The deck is thicker than the arch, and is stiff enough to prevent the slender arch from

buckling In structural engineering, buckling is the sudden change in shape (Deformation (engineering), deformation) of a structural component under Structural load, load, such as the bowing of a column under Compression (physics), compression or the wrin ...

. The highway deck is curved in plan. The arch varies in width from 4.2 metres to 6 metres, with one edge forming a straight line between river banks, and the other following the curve of the road.Billington, 1990, p.68 This arrangement helps to resist

centrifugal force Centrifugal force is a fictitious force in Newtonian mechanics (also called an "inertial" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It appears to be directed radially away from the axi ...

s from the traffic loads and from the curved deck's tendency to twist.

Reception

The bridge is regarded as one of Maillart's masterpieces. Unlike his previous arched Valtschielbach Bridge, it relies entirely on reinforced concrete and lacks masonry arch approaches. In 1947 the bridge was featured with other of Maillart's works in a four-month exhibit at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York"#353, Robert Maillart, Engineer, June 24 - October 13, 1947"
Exhibit History, Museum of Modern Art, accessed 2 November 2010 The architectural historian David Billington has written:Billington, 1990, p.70

"Integration of form here is as fully developed as in any concrete bridge ... All parts exhibit their true thicknesses, with nothing hidden for effect ... With the two mature masterpieces at Töss and Schwandbach, Maillart reached a climax in his building of deck-stiffened arch bridge."

References

*Billington, David P., ''Robert Maillart and the Art of Reinforced Concrete'', The MIT Press, 1990,

Notes

External links

* {{Authority control Bridges completed in 1933 Road bridges in Switzerland Deck arch bridges Buildings and structures in the canton of Bern Concrete bridges 20th-century architecture in Switzerland