Bridge over the Basento river, Reinforced concrete bridge in Potenza, Italy

The Ponte sul Basento, also called Viadotto dell'Industria or Musmeci Bridge, is a single 30 cm thick reinforced concrete membrane moulded into four contiguous arches with a 69.20 m centre-to-centre spacing and a 58.80 m clear span. The shell folds upward into trumpet-shaped piers that carry a 16 m wide box-girder deck, and the same surface serves as a pedestrian walkway.

The bridge was promoted by the Consorzio per lo Sviluppo Industriale under president Gino Viggiani to link Potenza with the new Basentana superhighway (S.S. 407) and the industrial zone along the river. Sergio Musmeci began the design in 1967, initially with Aldo Livadiotti and Emanuele Radogna, and the Edilstrade Forlì-Castrocaro company built it between 1971 and 1976 without prefabricated elements, at a cost of about 920,000,000 lire.

The bridge's drawings are held in the Sergio Musmeci and Zenaide Zanini archive, declared of great historical interest by the Lazio archival superintendence in 1997. In 2003 the Ministry of Heritage and Culture cited it at MAXXI, Rome, as an example of 20th-century architecture, and declared it a monument of cultural interest. Composer Christopher Cerrone wrote the piano piece The Arching Path after it.

The viaduct crosses the Basento, two railway lines and three city streets, linking the Potenza Centro motorway exit to via Nicola Vaccaro. The concrete shell doubles as a pedestrian walkway, so the structure can be observed on foot as well as from a car. The deck is 16 metres wide.

The bridge employs double-curved mathematical surfaces to minimize concrete while maintaining strength. This innovative approach makes it an example of efficient structural design that uses less material than traditional methods.