Venice's first major bridge in centuries is finally ready to sail up the Canal Grande for assembly next month, officials said Friday.
Chunks of the long-delayed structure will be sent up the famed canal from the end of July to August 12, when the central span will be carefully squeezed under the Rialto Bridge, Mayor Massimo Cacciari said.
River traffic will be suspended on the five nights the futuristic pieces designed by acclaimed Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava are in motion so as to keep disruption to a minimum.
Venetians will at long last awake on August 12 to find the structure in place ahead of bolting, rivetting and other finishing work that will enable it to be unveiled by the end of the year.
Speaking earlier this month at the inauguration of a current Rome show on his work, Calatrava said the bridge, which will link Venice's rail station with a huge carpark on the other side, was now certain to be in place by year's end.
"The inauguration date has not yet been set but I'm convinced it will take place before the New Year".
"It's an extraordinary and wonderful adventure," he added.
The controversial bridge was recently hit by reported fears that the canal banks might not be able to bear its weight.
Calatrava reacted angrily to the reports, saying the "unfounded criticism" of the bridge's design and engineering had been "extremely disappointing and professionally embarrassing".
Calatrava, designer of the 2004 Athens Olympic stadium, said he had felt impelled to reply to reports that appeared in the Italian press.
The weight of the bridge, he said, "will be borne by foundations set into solid terrain, far below the banks, in a resilient layer of stone and earth compacted and hardened by hydraulic cylinders".
The architect, whose other trademark buildings include an auditorium and sealife centre in his native Valencia and the Milwaukee Museum of Fine Arts, also stressed the bridge's delays and spiralling costs had nothing to do with him.
The bridge - the fourth on one of the world's most famous stretches of water - was to have been built years ago.
But delays of various sorts have held up its placement and expanded its original seven-billion-lire price tag threefold to an estimated ten million euros.
The bridge has been erected in a hangar in nearby Marghera and final load-bearing tests on its foundation structures have been successfully completed, Venice officials say.
"Necessary counter-measures" are already being taken in view of the "noted fragility of the canal banks," they say.
CELEBRATED IN ROME SHOW.
The Rome show on Calatrava - 'Santiago Calatrava - From Shapes To Architecture' - runs until September 2 at the Scuderie del Quirinale opposite the Italian president's Quirinal Palace.
Calatrava, 55, has received a cupboardful of awards and been the subject of numerous shows around the world.
Among his upcoming projects, he will design the new urban transit hub at the World Trade Center site in New York and has won provisional bidding for what will be the world's highest building, a projected 2,000ft (600m) spire in Chicago.
