The collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa killed 43 people and exposed deficiencies in both its design and its maintenance. It was a big blow to Italian politics and engineering, and there has been a clear endeavor to make amends through a fast-track process of commissioning a new viaduct. The replacement will not, however, take on the name of the original, in clear punishment of the engineer who designed it, the then much admired Ricardo Morandi.

After the competition for an architect and builder in which Santiago Calatrava participated, the new infrastructure will bear the signature of Renzo Piano, one of Genoa’s most illustrious citizens, who days after the bridge fell gifted the city with a project whose general lines have been preserved in the definitive design. The viaduct will stretch 1,100 meters on 19 pillars with elliptical bases set 50 meters apart – except the two central ones, 100 meters apart – and unlike in the Morandi, the distances will not be spanned with a single concrete brace, but with huge steel box beams. Completion is programmed for 2020.