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What holds the two bridges up?

The bridges, one 115 m long connecting the Fort Saint-Jean to the J4’s Le Môle and the other 70 m long linking the Fort Saint-Jean to the Panier district, are made of 4.5 m long voussoir segments, each of them weighing 13 tonnes. They were prefabricated in a workshop before being assembled on-site, accurate to roughly 1/10 of a millimetre. The tension of the cables running along the bridges holds the voussoirs in place, thanks to the compressive force exerted. The quality of the fibre-reinforced concrete which is highly resistant to compression, is exploited as much as possible. The bridges were built on scaffolding, that was removed once the structures were in place.

A basin was then dug out under the bridge connecting the MuCEM to the Fort Saint-Jean. Those bridges provide continuity to the urban path between the oldest part of the city and the new cultural facilities grouped together in the area of the Cité de la Méditerranée. As for the ramps leading out over the peripheral void, they are suspended from arms by means of steel cables. Those arms, made of UHPFRC, are visible on the building’s rooftop terrace.