Pont Mirabeau, Steel arch bridge across Seine River in western Paris, France
Pont Mirabeau is a steel arch bridge 173 metres long and 20 metres wide, with a 12-metre roadway and two 4-metre pavements, linking rue de la Convention in the 15th arrondissement to rue de Rémusat in the 16th. Its main arch spans 93 metres and the two lateral arches 32.4 metres each; the left-bank arch crosses the quay and the RER tracks. The two piers are shaped as boats, one heading downstream and one upstream.
The bridge was built between 1893 and 1896 by engineers Paul Rabel, Jean Résal, and Amédée Alby under President Sadi Carnot's administration. Its completion marked an important milestone in the development of modern steel construction techniques in France.
The bridge is named after Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti de Mirabeau, a writer and tribune of the French Revolution. Its best-known cultural association is Guillaume Apollinaire's poem "Le Pont Mirabeau", published in 1913 in Alcools and later set to music by singers including Léo Ferré and Marc Lavoine.
The bridge is open at all times for cars and pedestrians and offers good views of the Seine from both banks. Walking across allows you to appreciate the structure's details and surrounding landscape more fully.
The two piers are carved as stone boats: the right-bank one heads downstream, the left-bank one upstream. Each carries two bronze allegories by Jean-Antoine Injalbert, with Paris and Abundance at the prows facing the Seine, Navigation and Commerce at the sterns facing the deck. Injalbert was made an officer of the Légion d'honneur at the 1897 opening.
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