A new road bridge, radically different in design from earlier bridges across the Liffey, is to be opened today by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Dermot Lacey.
To be named the James Joyce Bridge, it was designed by Dr Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish engineer-architect whose dynamic sculptural forms have made him the world's leading bridge designer.
Linking Blackhall Place with Usher's Island, where it is overlooked by the derelict Georgian house in which Joyce set his short story The Dead, the bridge is expected to cost almost €9 million.
Originally estimated at £2.8 million (€3.56 million) when it was mooted four years ago, the bridge took six months longer to build than anticipated, mainly because of the unusual nature of its design.
While other bridges on the city stretch of the Liffey are made from stone or iron, the Blackhall Place bridge has a pair of splayed steel arches from which the concrete deck is suspended by high-tensile "hangers".
The white-painted parabolic arches are splayed outwards over two curving footpaths on either side of the four-lane roadway in the middle of the bridge.
The entire structure, including its undercarriage, is illuminated at night.
Dr Calatrava was directly commissioned by the city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, in 1999 to design the bridge as well as an even more significant bridge planned by Dublin City Council at Macken Street in the Docklands area.
Although this more controversial bridge, which would swing open to allow ships upriver, has full planning permission, sources say it has gone through a number of design reviews.
It is now unlikely to be built until 2005.
