Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Peru's Bridges: Puente Miguel Grau (1)


A photo of Puente Miguel Grau across La Marina Blvd and Rio Chili. I'm not sure why a bridge named after Admiral Grau (a Chilean who fought a war against Peru) is in Arequipa. Perhaps he is respected for his courage.


The bridge is a closed spandrel, stone masonry, multiple span arch in the 'Centro Historico' part of Arequipa.  I think the handsome arches are done a disservice by the water main hanging from the parapet. Unlike the lacy railing on Puente Bolognesi, this bridge has a stone railing along the edge of the deck. 


Note that the bridge was constructed in a similar manner to the ancient Roman bridges. A stone pier supports a cut stone arch with bossed facing stones. Bridge construction began in 1884 and was completed in 1898. It has quite a bit of damage: some the result of earthquakes, but most the result of its age. We'll take a closer look at this interesting structure tomorrow.
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Peru's Bridges: Puente Miguel Grau (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

1 comment:

  1. Grau was an Admiral Peruvian, he fought in a war with Chile and he died defending Perú, is for that reason what that bridge is called Grau, and his statue is in the oval. :)

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