OMA Wins Its First Bridge
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OMA has won an international competition to design Pont Jean- Jacques Bosc, a bridge across the river Garonne in Bordeaux, France, that will link the municipalities of Bègles and Floriac. The 44m by 545m bridge, which will act as “a generous new public space” and “an urban planning intervention” for the city, giving priority to pedestrian traffic, is the first to be realized by OMA. It is scheduled for completion in 2018.
Continuous surface stretching well beyond the banks of the river, seamlessly connects to the land. The gently sloping surface enables a pedestrian promenade while still allowing the necessary clearance for boats beneath. All traffic modes – including private cars, public transport, bicycles and foot traffic – are accommodated by its width, with the largest allowance devoted to pedestrians. Clément Blanchet, leading the project for OMA with Rem Koolhaas: “The bridge itself is not the ‘event’ in the city, but a platform that can accommodate events of the city.
We wanted to provide the simplest expression – the least technical, least lyrical, but the most concise and effective structural solution.” The proposed design aims to “rethink the civic function and symbolism of a twenty-first century bridge” by creating a platform traversing the river Garonne that could be used by cars, trams, buses, bicycles and pedestrians. A wide boulevard would make the bridge easy to walk across and allow it to be used to host events.
The bridge is designed to cohere with the adjacent St. John Belcier urban redevelopment project. It also attempts to unify the different conditions of the two banks of the Garonne: from the Right Bank, strictly aligned on a poplar-lined meadow, to the urban landscape of the Left Bank, it aims solve the dual challenge of aura and performance in an environment steeped in history.
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