Pont Saint-Pierre

The Pont Saint-Pierre is marked by its slender, reddish-brown steel arches that sit low over the Garonne River. This bridge connects the Saint-Cyprien neighborhood to the city center, replacing a series of wooden structures that regularly succumbed to the river’s violent flooding. In the eighteen hundreds, officials grew tired of rebuilding and authorized a sturdier iron design. During its construction, engineers struggled against the strong currents, forcing them to anchor the foundations deep into the riverbed using heavy, pressurized metal caissons.