A new bridge in Venice is facing a fresh hurdle after last-minute worries about whether the banks of the Grand Canal can bear its weight.
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.
Now it has been decided to erect the bridge in a hangar in nearby Marghera so that final load-bearing tests on its foundation structures can be made, Venice public works chief Mara Rumiz said on Monday.
She added that "necessary counter-measures" are already being taken in view of the "noted fragility of the canal banks".
Rumiz said she could not give a precise date for the bridge's opening but forecast that the main span should be in position by the end of the summer.
Venice Mayor Massimo Cacciari has asked a Padua University expert, Giorgio Romaro, to lead the latest probe into the stability of the bridge.
The bridge, designed by award-winning Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, will put a load equivalent in weight to 75 articulated lorries (trailer trucks) onto each side of the canal.
"The structure of Calatrava's bridge poses no problems but a lot of tests have to be carried out, along with very tough calculations, to be completely sure it will hold," Cacciari said.
Huge iron pins to tether the structure have already been hammered home on the canal.
As recently as January, officials said the complex construction of steel, glass and stone would be in place by April at the latest.
The bridge parts were floated up the Canal from the Venetian port of Marghera over the last two summers when tides were low enough for the newcomer to pass below the canal's three other bridges.
YEARS OF CONTROVERSY.
The pedestrian bridge, which will connect the railway station with a huge car park on the other side, has been billed as a design that draws on Venice's thousand-year history while looking towards its future.
The Venice cultural establishment has been stung by critics who claim the design is too futuristic for the city.
The bridge, composed of 74 separate segments, each one containing 55 different-sized elements, will eventually form a key traffic hub for commuters and tourists.
With the construction of a tram station, it will offer a vital link between boat, tram, rail and car connections, slicing ten minutes from the journey time for those crossing from one side of the water to the other.
Nine meters wide and 9.3 meters high, the entrance on either end will be composed of a series of glass steps adorned with Istrian stone. Lights sunk into the stone will illuminate the walkway from the ground up.
The design has been at the centre of controversy ever since it was first unveiled in the mid-1990s.
Serious concern over its inaccessibility to wheelchairs-users - only recently resolved - long added to the row.
Calatrava allegedly refused to adjust his design to make it wheelchair-friendly on the basis it would ruin the aesthetic lines of the bridge.
But officials recently assured reporters that once "up and running" the bridge would be fully accessible to everyone, regardless of mobility problems.
Calatrava, 55, designed the 2004 Olympic Stadium in Athens and has won provisional bidding for what will be the world's highest building, a projected 2,000ft (600m) spire in Chicago.
He will design the new urban transit hub at the World Trade Center site in New York.
His trademark buildings include an auditorium and sealife centre in his native Valencia, and the Milwaukee Museum of Fine Arts.
Calatrava has received a cupboardful of awards and been the subject of numerous shows.
In 2004, he received the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
In 1993, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York held a major exhibition of his work called "Structure and Expression".
In 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held an exhibition of his artistic work entitled "Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture Into Architecture".
Exhibitions of his work have also taken place in Germany, England, Spain and Italy.
Calatrava's style has been heralded as bridging the gap between structural engineering and architecture.
