Puente de la Mujer

Donated by Alberto L. Gonzales and his family to the city of Buenos Aires, Santiago Calatrava's Puente De La Mujer (Bridge Of The Woman) is the architect's only work in South America. Completed in 2001,the 335-foot-long suspension pedestrian bridge is broken up into three sections, two static and one mobile. The central portion of the bridge was designed to rotate 90 degrees to allow water traffic to pass, with the two static portions connecting to pedestrian streets on either side of the dam. Most of the bridge's weight rests upon its central support, in which motors are located allowing the bridge to rotate. The bridge was primarily built in Victoria, Spain and taken to Buenos Aires in parts over five months. In its design, Puente De La Mujer is somewhat related to the Alamillo Bridge in Seville in its radical asymmetry and expressive tension, though its scale and angles are admittedly less grandiose and its asymmetry is reversed from the Seville bridge.