Artist ‘closes’ Grand Canal bridge
IMG class=hide alt=”Artist ‘closes’ Grand Canal bridge” src=”http://www.mineralfossil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/wpid-dcd080580ce7fb533d16befd4721d81f.jpg” (ANSA) – Venice, March 20 – An artist symbolically “closed” the newest bridge spanning the Grand Canal in Venice on Thursday in protest against its 11.3-million-euro price tag and unpredictable access to people with mobility problems. The Bridge of the Constitution, known locally as the Calatrava bridge after its ‘starchitect’ Spanish designer Santiago Calatrava, was marked at both ends by signs that bore no-access symbols over a person in a wheelchair and read “I cannot cross”. Behind the stunt was Abruzzo artist Pep Marchegiani. Since November, the bridge has featured a fully enclosed moveable wheelchair pod that runs alongside the footpath, but it has frequently been out of order. The bridge itself was opened in the dead of night without fanfare in 2008 after the city council canceled its official inauguration over protests from local politicians. PDogged by controversy and engineering mishaps, the bridge went over an original price tag of four million euros in the mid-1990s and eventually swelled to more than 11 million./PPSome estimates say that number could double due to legal disputes with the construction company./PPIn addition, the overdue wheelchair pod cost 1.8 million euros – twice the original forecast./PPThe Veneto region is currently suing Calatrava for 3.8 million euros in damages./PPCiting “huge errors” in the design, the region’s audit court subpoenaed Calatrava last August at the end of a 10-year investigation, begun as problems surfaced during the bridge’s construction./PPThe sleek arc of steel accessed by a flight of glass steps spans 94 metres from one bank to the other./PPGeologists blame its low articulation for bearing too much pressure on the fragile banks, forcing them to spread apart and collapse in some parts./PPCalatrava, who once described the work as his “most beautiful bridge” and “an act of love for Venice and for Italian civilization in general”, said just prior to the bridge’s unveiling that the cost overruns had “nothing to do” with him but were caused by an initial underestimation of costs./PPHe also noted that the need for disabled access had not been raised at the planning stage./PPIn the meantime, those with mobility problems had been able to travel free of charge on the water bus which, like the bridge, links Venice’s railway station with Piazzale Roma, a car, bus and ferry terminal on the opposite side of the Grand Canal./PPFirst planned in 1996, the bridge was installed two years late amid fears that the canal banks wouldn’t be able to hold it up properly./PPAt one point the mayor had to dismiss fears that the bridge might be shaky after a local newspaper quoted project chief Roberto Casarin as saying it had moved “about a centimetre” in a load-bearing trial./PPOther alterations to the original plan included the decision to add stairs, in order to make the structure more visible to tourists, and to use two kinds of stone instead of one./PPIn one memorable mishap, engineers had to rethink a critical stage of construction when pieces of the bridge proved too large to pass by barge beneath the Rialto Bridge, causing a logjam./PPThe bridge is the fourth over the lagoon city’s Grand Canal and the city’s first new bridge in 70 years./PPWhen functional, the wheelchair pod is operative seven days a week, from 8:00am to 10:00pm, and is available to anyone with mobility problems including the elderly, pregnant women, and families with small children./P
pa href=”http://ansa.feedsportal.com/c/34225/f/621716/s/386ac65f/sc/40/l/0L0Sansa0Bit0Cweb0Cnotizie0Crubriche0Cenglish0C20A140C0A30C20A0CArtist0Ecloses0EGrand0ECanal0Ebridge0I10A2629620Bhtml/story01.htm” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”View the original article here/a/p