Basento Viaducto

Musmeci, who along with contemporaries Frei Otto, Eladio Dieste, and his mentor Luigi Nervi, derived his forms from the stresses incurred upon different materials and structural systems, usually through extensive studies using large-scale models, reversing the typical design process which first prescribes arbitrary geometry to specific conditions or problems before seeing to structural issues. The finalized form was the result of its optimization, which ensured maximum efficiency in performance and minimal material usage. The Basento Viaduct is comprised of a road deck supported below by a continuous structural concrete membrane 30 cm thick. The flatness and expanse of the carriageway’s top layer is subverted by as “underworld” of complex surfaces, whose curved, fluid forms can only in the most vulgar sense be called organic. This cavernous space functions as a pedestrian walkway–a perverse iteration of the High Line, avant la lettre, a kind of public (skate-) park sandwiched in mid-air. Whereas Musmeci’s bridge may seem an over-elaborate solution to a relatively standard problem, it speaks to the aesthetic capabilities of the engineer, whose forms here are not given over to some Calatrava-like exuberance for expressivity’s sake, but are instead justified by their inherent efficiencies.