The structure of the new bridge over the Polcevera has been completed

Since the collapse of the Ponte Morandi on 14 August 2018, 620 days have passed. In full lockdown, the 19th and last span of the bridge in Genoa is completed, as designed by Renzo Piano and built by PerGenova consortium.  
 

In Genoa, between pylons 11 and 12, the 19th steel span of the new bridge over the Polcevera by Renzo Piano has been raised. With the installation of this last span of 50 metres, the construction of the bare structure is completed, after 620 days and 60 thousand hours of uninterrupted work.


Not even the Coronavirus was able to interrupt the work on the most strategic and at the same time most symbolic construction site in Italy. It is now expected that the PerGenova consortium – formed by the Salini Impregilo cordate with Fincantieri – will complete the bridge in July 2020, filling the 1,067 metres that the Genoa-Savona motorway lost on 14 August 2018. 18 pylons (with foundations reaching 50 m underground), 19 spans, 24,000 tonnes of steel and, in memory of the victims of the collapse, 43 lampposts that will crown the structure.

Ponte Polcevera, the rendering of Renzo Piano’s project. The bridge will have 43 lampposts that refer to the number of victims on August 14, 2018

The works proceeded at a fast pace: from the demolition in February 2019, to the green light on 22 March, from the laying of the first foundation mast on 15 April to the completion of the last pylon in February 2020. Renzo Piano stated that “Italy knows how to do these things. It is sad that it only knows how to do them when it is in an emergency”. In addition to the bridge, the construction of the Polcevera Park and the Red Circle by Stefano Boeri is planned, together with the offices Metrogramma from Milan and Inside Outside from Amsterdam with the collaboration of the company Mobility in Chain.