Coscile Viaduct

Coscile Viaduct
Viadotto Coscile
Le Vigne, Calabria, Italy
450 feet high / 137 meters high
200 foot span / 61 meter span
1974

The highest of many high precast concrete girder bridges on Italy’s famed A3 motorway, the Coscile viaduct opened in 1974. Like so many Italian highway bridges from the era, Coscile was built with slender rectangular piers topped with cantilevered hammerhead supports. Precast concrete drop-in spans rest on “chairs” at either end of the hammerhead cap. Designed by Uffizio Vianini, the huge viadotto measures 2,079 feet (633.6 mtrs) from end to end.

Among Italy’s many spectacular motorways, the A3 Salerno-Reggio Calabria has always had the biggest and greatest variety of high bridges. Constructed in a Frankenstein-like fashion in bits and pieces throughout the 1960s and 1970s, this laboratory of Italian civil engineering includes the monstrous Sfalassa gorge strut frame bridge, the Favazzina cable stayed bridge as well as more conventional bridges like the Aglio concrete arch.

Coscile Bridge satellite image.

Coscile Bridge location map.