Contractors building the Renzo Piano-designed bridge in Genoa have handed it over just 15 months after starting construction.
More than a thousand people worked around the clock, seven days a week, to finish the 1,067-metre-long bridge less than two years after its predecessor, the Morandi Bridge, collapsed in August 2018, killing 43 people.
Webuild (formerly Salini Impregilo) said yesterday that final tests and inspections had been done and the bridge had been turned over to Genoa’s mayor, Marco Bucci.
Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will attend the inauguration today.
Webuild, which teamed up with Fincantieri for the job, said it would donate any profit from the contract to charity.
"This bridge is the dream of a lifetime," said Webuild chief executive Pietro Salini. "We were able to do something beautiful. And we did it with heart – whatever profit that we might earn from this project will go to charity."
The next step is for Mayor Bucci to hand the bridge to the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and, subsequently, the concession operator that will open it to traffic.
Everyone involved in the project has their name engraved on a plaque mounted on one of the piers (Webuild)
Webuild called it a demanding project that took 420 days from the laying of the first of 18, 45-metre-high piers to the final, 4cm-thick layer of asphalt.
It involved more than 10,100 hours of work on every day except Christmas and a few days of bad weather.
Everyone involved in the project, whether employed by the main contractors or by the 330 supply-chain firms who took part, now has their name engraved on a plaque mounted on one of the piers, unveiled in the presence of Genoa Archbishop Mons. Tasca on 27 July.
On that day, the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia performed a concert for workers.
"Today we deliver the keys to the bridge that belongs to all Italians," said Pietro Salini. "We show the world that we are able to create public works that are innovative and safe, because the lives of those who work and use bridges, roads, trains and metros every day remain an absolute priority."
Top image: More than a thousand people worked around the clock, seven days a week, to finish the 1,067-metre-long bridge
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