The Laguna Garzón Bridge is a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

crossing the Laguna Garzón in

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

, on the border between the Maldonado and

Rocha Rocha may refer to: * Rocha (surname), a Portuguese surname * Rocha, Moca, Puerto Rico, a barrio in the municipality of Moca, Puerto Rico * Rocha, Rio de Janeiro, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * Rocha, Uruguay, capital city of the R ...

departments. The bridge is famous for its unusual circular shape and was designed by Uruguayan architect

Rafael Viñoly Rafael Viñoly Beceiro (1 June 1944 – 2 March 2023) was an Uruguayan-born architect based in New York. He was the principal of Rafael Viñoly Architects, which he founded in 1983. The firm has offices in New York City, Palo Alto, London, Ma ...

. It is designed in a circular shape to force drivers to slow down, and allows for pedestrian access along the one-way circular route, including crosswalks that allow access to either the inner or outer sidewalks of the circle. Laguna Garzón was previously served by a small 2-vehicle

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

that required daylight and good weather to operate. The bridge replaced the ferry in December 2015, providing a crossing for pedestrians and up to approximately 1,000 vehicles a day.

Construction

Construction for the Laguna Garzón Bridge began in September 2014 and ended in December 2015. It cost $10 million to build, 80 percent of which was provided by Argentine real estate developer,

Eduardo Costantini Eduardo Francisco Costantini (born September 17, 1946) is an Argentine real estate developer and businessman and the founder and chairman of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA). As of September 2024, ''Forbes'' estimated his ...

. To build the bridge, 450 tons of

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

, 500 cubic metres of

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

, and 40,000 metres of

cables Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a he ...

were used.

Gallery

File:Bridge Laguna Garzón¡ (detail).png, Detail of pedestrian crossings to sidewalks on the outer and inner circle File:Bridge Laguna Garzón-3.jpg, Positioning of bridge and approaches within the Laguna Garzón

References

External links

The bridge's page on Rafael Viñoly's website
Road bridges Bridges in Uruguay Bridges completed in 2015 {{Uruguay-road-stub