Pont Neuf (Toulouse)

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Coordinates: 43 ° 35 ′ 58 ″  N , 1 ° 26 ′ 23 ″  E

Pont Neuf
Pont Neuf
use Road bridge
Crossing of Garonne
place Toulouse
construction Stone arch bridge
overall length 220 m
Number of openings 7 + 2
Longest span Max. 30 m
start of building 1543
completion 1632
planner Jacques Lemercier et al. a.
location
Pont Neuf (Toulouse) (Occitania)
Pont Neuf (Toulouse)
Pont Neuf 1.jpg
p1

The Pont Neuf (German "New Bridge") is the oldest surviving bridge over the Garonne in Toulouse . It connects Place Esquirol and Rue de Metz with Rue de la République .

description

The Pont Neuf leads over the Garonne flowing between high embankment walls from the old town on its right bank in a westerly direction to the former suburb of Saint-Cyprien . As the river curves to the left here, its deepest point is closer to the old town. The approximately 220 m long bridge therefore has seven uneven arches, with the largest arch outside the center being closer to the right bank. It is adjoined by two smaller arches on the right and four on the left as seen in the direction of the river. On the left western bank, the bridge is continued up to the street level there by an approximately 85 m long ramp with two arches that are no longer visible today. The largest of the arches made of light lime and red-brown bricks has a clear width of around 30 m, the smallest of around 18 m. The road surface rises slightly from both sides towards the middle of the largest arch.

The basket arches are supported by mighty, but hardly protruding from the water, between 7 and 12 m wide pillars, which are pointed forwards and backwards and are crowned by smaller pillar porches. Large passages were built in the spandrels between the arches in order to reduce the water pressure during floods. Allegedly, these gargoyles, which were also edged with limestone, were originally intended to represent snapdragons, but were made in a simpler form for cost reasons.

The bridge is around 22 m wide, including the decorative bright edge at the edge of the road, and around 19.50 m wide within the stone parapets. The carriageway is currently (2011) divided into two bus lanes and one lane leading to the west. There is a cycle path and a sidewalk on both sides.

The bridge is often illuminated at night, often in different colors.

Immediately below the western end of the bridge is the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques , in front of which the last remaining pillar and arch of the former Pont Vieux protrudes into the river.

History of bridge building

Toulouse had various wooden bridges over the Garonne, especially the Pont Vieux and the Pont de la Daurade , a covered wooden bridge, which had to be renewed again and again. As early as 1481, the city council was concerned with the construction of a new brick bridge, but it was not until 1541 that King François I gave him permission to finance it through regional taxes, which were supposed to be limited to the assumed short construction period.

In 1542, a group of six bricklayers and carpenters were commissioned to plan a round arch bridge and to examine the river bed using a long iron rod, the only possible method at the time. The following year, under the direction of Nicolas Bachelier, work began with the first pillar on the left bank due to plans that had obviously been changed according to his ideas, which was dry when the water was low and was probably completed in 1544. The founding of the left abutment already encountered considerable technical and probably also financial problems, so that it could only be completed after 1550.

In 1554 work began on the second pillar. However, it took until the end of 1555 for the construction pit enclosed by a wooden sheet pile wall to be sufficiently sealed in the river. A few days before the laying of the foundation stone, however, the excavation pit was flooded and finally carried away by the floods.

In May 1556, the city therefore placed an order with an entrepreneur who had promised to build the remaining pillars. Eight months later, the first sheet piling was barely progressed, and in the following February appraisers found that the construction work did not even match the advance payments received, and the contractor was finally thrown into prison. Later two serious carpenters were found who carried out the second pillar from 1558 to 1559. After fifteen years, two pillars and an abutment were built. The shoring for the third pillar could only be drained after a triple shoring had been carried out. The pillar was completed in 1561.

As no entrepreneur wanted to take the risk of bridge building on more, the city had further work as Director services are running. Even with the fourth pillar, it was hardly possible to dry out the bottom. The engineer du roi , called for help, designed a machine to excavate the construction pit, but the foundations for the pillar were laid before the ground was really stable. The pillar then cracked and its downstream part began to slide. The fourth pillar could not be renovated until 1567.

Around that time, the royal administration, which had extended taxes on construction year after year, decided to transfer construction management from the city to the state. In 1579 the fifth pillar was tackled. Under the direction of Dominique Bachelier , the son of Nicolas, the pillar was built on stilts, as a stable ground was not reached, and completed in two years. However, this pillar was also divided into two parts, which were completely washed away by the floods of the Garonne until 1610.

From 1581 to 1597 the construction work had to be stopped because of the eighth Huguenot War.

The sixth pillar was built under the direction of the architects Pierre Souffron and Dominique Capmartin between 1597 and 1601 in a very large excavation pit, in which the right abutment could also be built by 1606. The fifth pillar was completely rebuilt by Souffron, who was called in again in the period from 1610 to 1612, as well as part of the seventh arch, the first on the right. Financial disputes between the États de Languedoc and the royal administration as well as an exceptionally strong flood in 1613 delayed further construction progress.

The matter was brought before the Privy Council, which set up a commission of which Jacques Lemercier was a member. Lemercier drew up two drafts for the bridge arches, one of which was accepted by the Privy Council on September 30, 1614 and made the basis for an award of the construction work to a consortium of five master builders from Paris, including Marcel le Roy . This design with basket arches of different sizes became the basis for the final look of the bridge. From 1618 Marcel le Roy sent his nephew François Mansart to the construction site as his representative, who stayed there until 1621. The first three arches were built between 1615 and early 1619 when dangerous cracks were discovered in the fourth pillar. The appraisals and consultations lasted six years until Lemercier's proposal for the restoration work was finally accepted, which was then carried out by 1626.

In 1619, work on the seventh arch could have started on the right-hand side at the same time, for which the part that had already been completed had to be broken off. When Mansart began, there were arguments, the background of which was not only anger with Souffron, but above all animosities between those responsible from Toulouse on the one hand and those from Paris on the other. They even resulted in Mansart and a colleague being briefly arrested and ending up in a lengthy trial. Construction work could therefore only be resumed at this point in 1626 and completed in 1632.

The Pont Neuf in Toulouse is similar in width to the Pont Neuf in Paris , which was built around the same time, and the Pont Henri IV in Châtellerault . For all three bridges, the then customary building with houses was either planned or should at least remain possible, but under King Henri IV such building was not permitted on any of the bridges.

In 1614 Mansart was commissioned by Lemercier to build a large archway with side towers at the left end of the bridge, about half of which was completed in 1620. It took until 1642, until there was a triumphal arch with an only partially completed relief of Louis XIII. was completed according to the plans of Jean Cailhau, which was demolished again in 1858 for traffic reasons.

Pont Neuf, ca.1790

Although the bridge was completed and opened to traffic in 1632, it was only opened 27 years later on October 19, 1659 by the young Louis XIV .

Since then, the Pont Neuf has survived all the floods of the Garonne, including the strong flood of June 1875, which reached the top of the arches.

In 1937 and 1947/48 fundamental renovation work was carried out on the pillars. The drinking water sewer system in the bridge, which was planned in 1542, was discovered. From the left bank, drinking water was to be directed through the bridge to a water lock in the right abutment, from which it was to be distributed throughout the city.

Web links

Commons : Pont Neuf de Toulouse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ You can find both the spelling without a hyphen and that with a hyphen: Pont-Neuf
  2. ↑ The information is based mainly on the article by Jean Mesqui: Le Pont Neuf de Toulouse sur la Garonne (PDF; 3.0 MB)
  3. ↑ The numbering of the pillars begins on the left with the first, free-standing pillar, the abutment hidden in the embankment is not counted as a pillar. Other sources count the abutment as the first pillar, which explains the contradicting information.
  4. ↑ Batardeau is the technical term for a wooden sheet pile wall that is anchored in the river bed and forms a sufficiently large excavation pit to wall the pillar in it. Initially, the batardeau consisted of two wooden walls, the spaces between which were filled with clay and similar material to create a seal. Occasionally, two pillars including the falsework for the bridge arch are built in a large batardeau . The carpentry work was therefore often more important than the subsequent masonry work.
  5. ↑ Engineer of the King ; senior civil servant engineer
  6. ↑ The Huguenot Wars were ended by the Edict of Nantes of April 13, 1598
  7. ↑ The innovation introduced by Souffron was a batardeau with triple wooden walls, which could be gradually integrated deeper into the ground, and which were ultimately decisive for the success of the construction project.
  8. ↑ Conseil du roi
  9. ↑ The begun by Souffron arch was too high for the flatter bridge of Lemercier.