Puente de la Mujer / Women's Bridge (Buenos Aires) - Architecture Prizes on Waymarking.com

Beautiful slender structure of pedestrian swing bridge Puente de la Mujer (Women's Bridge), work of renown Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is the key landmark of a modern residential-commercial district of Buenos Aires - Puerto Madero.

Puente de la Mujer is of the Cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge type and is also a swing bridge, but somewhat unusual in its asymmetrical arrangement. It has a single mast with cables suspending a portion of the bridge which rotates 90 degrees in order to allow water traffic to pass. When it swings to allow watercraft passage, the far end comes to a resting point on a stabilizing pylon.

Designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava on a plan very similar to a bridge over the Guadalquivir River in Seville, Spain (1992) and a bridge over the Sacramento River in Redding, California (2004), it has a forward-, rather than a reverse-angled cantilever, as is seen in those bridges. Started in 1998, it was inaugurated on December 20, 2001, and is the only one of Calatrava's works in Latin America. The architect has described the design as a synthesis of the image of a couple dancing the tango.

The 170 me pedestrian bridge weighs 800 tonnes, is 6.20 m wide and is divided into two fixed portions, 25 m and 32.50 m long respectively, and a middle section of 102.5 m that rotates on a white concrete pylon, allowing vessels to pass in less than two minutes. This central section is supported by a steel "needle" with a concrete core, about 34 m high. The "needle," inclined at a 39° angle, anchors suspension cables which support the central span. A computer system at the eastern end of the bridge operates the turning mechanism when required.

[excerpted from Wikipedia]