Passerelle de Saint-Antoine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 46 ° 11 ′ 51 "  N , 6 ° 9 ′ 3"  E ; CH1903:  500587  /  117035

Passerelle de Saint-Antoine
Passerelle de Saint-Antoine
Colored lithograph of the Passerelle de Saint-Antoine
use Pedestrian
Crossing of Moat
place Geneva
construction Suspension bridge
overall length 82 m
width 2 m
Number of openings 2
Longest span 33 m
Load capacity 10.4 t
building-costs 16,350 Swiss francs
opening 1823
Status canceled
planner Guillaume-Henri Dufour
Marc Seguin
closure about 1850
location
Passerelle de Saint-Antoine (Canton of Geneva)
Passerelle de Saint-Antoine
Elevation
Passarelle Saint Antoine.png
From A Memoir of Suspension Bridges
p1

The Passerelle de Saint-Antoine in Geneva was a pedestrian bridge that is considered to be the world's first permanent wire rope suspension bridge . It was built by Guillaume-Henri Dufour based on designs by Marc Seguin .

history

Suspension bridges were already known at the time of Dufour, but they were not suspended on wire ropes , but rather designed as chain bridges with wrought-iron link chains. Examples are the Union Bridge, opened in 1820, or the Menai Bridge , opened in 1826 , both in Great Britain .

Dufour had read the travelogue of Marc-Auguste Pictet , the editor of the Bibliothèque universelle , about a test wire rope bridge of the Seguin brothers in Annonay and began to experiment with wire ropes himself. Pictet realized that cable bridges could improve the connection of the growing suburbs to Geneva city center. Marc Seguin , the builder of the first 18-meter-long test footbridge , was invited to Geneva to discuss the project with Dufour.

Dufour developed the design based on Seguin's sketches in late 1822 and proposed a suspension bridge with wire cables with a central tower and two spans. The bridge was built in five months in 1823.

Thanks to the success of the Pont Saint Antoine , Dufour was able to build the Pont des Pâquis in Geneva in 1825 and the Pont des Bergues as a new suspension bridge in 1834 .

After the lease between the city of Geneva and the private owners expired, the bridge became the property of the city of Geneva in 1843. On this occasion, Dufour, as a cantonal engineer, had to check the stability of his bridge again. The numerous tests showed that twenty years of use had left only minor marks.

From 1849 the fortifications of the city were removed and the space gained was used for a city ring. In the course of this work, the bridge had to be removed, the exact location of which is no longer recognizable today.

Building

The pedestrian bridge connected the St. Antoine district with the Tranchées district via a moat in the existing city fortifications. The 82 m long and 2 m wide bridge had a large central tower , over which the six supporting cables ran, which were anchored in two further towers at both ends of the bridge. The suspension ropes were parallel wire ropes , as they are still used today for suspension bridges. They consisted of 90 parallel and tightly wrapped iron wires with a diameter of 1.9 mm. The bridge weighed 8,000 kg, but could carry 160 people with the then assumed standard weight of 65 kg, i.e. 10,400 kg. It cost the comparatively modest sum of 16,350 Swiss francs, whereby the budget was only exceeded by 196 francs.

Web links

Commons : Passerelle de Saint-Antoine  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Stewart Drewry: A Memoir on Suspension Bridges . Longmans, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1832, pp. 115-.
  2. ^ Guillaume-Henri Dufour: Description du pont suspendu en fil de fer, construit a Geneve . JJ Paschoud, 1824, p. 31–.
  3. ↑ Experiences sur la force des fils de fer. Mémoire de la société de physique det d'histoire naturelle de Genève 1823
  4. ^ Marc Séguin: Des ponts en fil de fer . Bachelier, 1826, p. 40–.
  5. ↑ Genève, les premières photographies. L'Hebdo , March 15, 2012, accessed January 13, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Pont des Bergues. In: Structurae
  7. ↑ Histoire de Genève. Helvetia Genevensis, 2006, accessed on January 13, 2014 (French).
  8. ↑ Map of Geneva with the location of the fortress walls : The old Tranchées district was between today's Blvd. Helvétique and Blvd. des Tranchées in the southeast of the old town bordered by the Promenade de St. Antoine. In the 19th century, the fortress walls and the quarter disappeared completely under the new buildings, which, however, still bear the old name.
  9. ↑ Passerelle St-Antoine à Genève - 1823 on art-et-histoire
  10. ^ Pont de Saint-Antoine. In: Structurae