Inaugurated in July, the Simone-Veil bridge now connects the two banks of the Garonne south of Bordeaux. This monumental work, 549 meters long and 44 meters wide, constitutes the link between the brand new Euratlantique district, located on the border of Bègles (Gironde), and the city of Floirac on the right bank. Delivered four years late, it was eagerly awaited. A conflict over the cost of the operation led the city, which owned the project, to change construction companies during the project.
On a formal level the work is nothing dazzling. It has the rather crude appearance of a slightly rounded concrete sheet, supported by sixteen orthogonal piles aligned two by two. It is its quality of use that distinguishes it: the pleasure of exploring it outside the car, of stopping for a moment, of leaning on the railing to contemplate the landscape from this unique point of view, of sitting in one of the large seats. that mark the intersection to make a phone call or, why not, read a book.
This is the challenge of its great width that has allowed, together with the lanes reserved respectively for the circulation of cars, buses and bicycles, to deploy more than 15 meters a wide pedestrian space that could be foreseen in the future, and even now, which is beyond the limits that have been placed on it. Especially if a festive event requires it (fair sales points have been installed for this purpose). At the time of the competition, architects Rem Koolhaas and Chris van Duijn, his partner at the OMA agency, took as reference the Rialto, the famous inhabited bridge in Venice, as well as the Galata Bridge in Istanbul.
Great place for gentle mobility.
This new infrastructure is part of the dynamic of urban transformation that, since the creation of the tram and the development of the Bordeaux docks in the early 2000s, has seen the emergence of an entire archipelago of new neighborhoods. On a metropolitan scale, there is still talk of “pacifying” the traffic on the A63 that reaches Bègles, along the Garonne, as it approaches this new Simone-Veil bridge that marks the entrance to Bordeaux; reduce the number of lanes, that is, slow down traffic, accommodate soft mobility, urbanize riverbanks, etc.
The OMA project prepares the ground, in a way. This led to the reconfiguration of traffic at the two entrances to the bridge and the extension of the public space it offers to the water’s edge. In front of the Arkéa Arena performance hall, on the Floirac side, a small landscape park has been designed, decorated with large installations, halfway between public art and recreational devices.
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