The Vizcaya Bridge Project
The world’s first transporter bridge was conceived and designed by architect Martín Alberto de Palacio Elissagüe and engineer Ferdinand Joseph Arnodin. Both had signed a collaboration agreement and filed the same day and at the same time, on November 5, 1887 at 11 in the morning, Palacio in the Civil Government of Biscay and Arnodin in Paris, the patent application for the invention of a “Shuttle bridge for large spans”. It was built on private initiative between 1887 and 1893, with Santos López de Letona as the main shareholder.
The bridge was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 12 July 2006. It is currently painted in the colour of the red haematite vein of Somorrostro.
Alberto Santana Ezquerra has delivered the plans and the Patent.
