Radetzky Bridge, Road bridge in Graz, Austria.
Radetzky Bridge is a road structure that crosses the Mur River in Graz, spanning about 54 meters with a combination of steel and stone materials. It carries both vehicle traffic and pedestrians, linking different areas of the city on either side of the waterway.
A wooden "Neue Brücke" crossed the Mur here from 1787, built as the Jakomini suburb grew; it was destroyed by flooding in 1827. The city council decided in 1892 to replace its successor with a stone-and-iron bridge, and the steel Radetzky Bridge opened on 13 August 1898, the fourth iron bridge in Graz. Its cost of 160,542 gulden was shared equally by the Austrian state, Styria and the city.
The bridge is named after Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, the Austrian field marshal who commanded Habsburg forces in Italy in 1848–49. It links the Innere Stadt with Gries, the district built from 1786 onward, and since 1999 the steel structure has formed part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Historic Centre of Graz and Schloss Eggenberg.
The bridge links Innere Stadt with Gries and carries a vehicle lane plus a separate walkway and cycle path added in 1994 on the downstream, southern side. The steel structure rests on a masonry pier founded 7 m deep in gravel; the landward foundations reach 3 m. Look for the four slender, obliquely cut light pylons installed in 1994.
The wave under the bridge is Austria's oldest standing wave for surfers, formed by the current against the bridge's stone pier. It is not a 1999 addition: the spot predates that year and is used by river surfers on the Mur in the middle of Graz.
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