La costruzione di un mito: la vera storia del ponte del Risorgimento

This is the story of a bridge, some courageous men and, above all, about reinforced concrete that, as this story was unfolding, experienced a deep transformation; from a commercial system, protected by patents and restrained by rules governing its use, it developed into a free material at the disposal of any designer capable of fully exploiting its surprising and mysterious structural potential. The main character on this stage was the inventor of reinforced concrete himself, François Hennebique, or rather, the inventor of his most famous patent, filed in 1892, perfected in 1897, and about to expire in 1909 when this story started to unfold. The stage is Italy that more than any other Country was to enhance the properties of this material in all its variants, thanks to the debate that was triggered by the enduring and inexplicable strength of the work at the centre of the story: the Risorgimento Bridge in Rome. There is a rich bibliography on the bridge and many writings that were published at that time. Today’s new reading is made possible because we can compare the documents held in the archives of Giovanni Antonio Porcheddu’s company, Hennebique concessionaire for Northern Italy and builder of the bridge, with the records stored at the Fonds Bétons Armés Hennebique in Paris, and with those found in the Historic Archives of the Campidoglio, in spite of the intricate complexity of this office. The search has once again proven to be fascinating. The daily correspondence, whose sequence was reconstructed thanks to the documents found in the files of the offices in Turin, Rome and Paris, still today, after a hundred years, vividly reflects the audacity, preoccupation, pride, abilities and excitement of the main figure who designed and built the boldest bridge over the River Tiber.