This bridge is an execptional monument to overcoming the difficulties in engineering works. Political pressure, technical difficulties in the foundation, and the Spanish Civil War (concrete suspenders were the solution against lack of steel) delayed decades the end of works until 1943.

The great touch of this bridge is the reinforfed concrete central arch, 75 m. of tied deck span, the third in the world in those days. About this, there’s an urban legend about the great civil engineer D. Eduardo Torroja is the author of the project. In fact, D. Eduardo helped with his advice making the arch triarticulated better than biarticulated during the execution of the works. But the final result was thanks to several engineers since 1922 to 1943.

There are two very interesting technical articles by engineer Cesar Villalba Granda in the Revista de Obras Públicas(Works Magazine of Spanish Civil Engineers) :

• Foundation, Nov.,1943 (es,pdf)
• Superstructure, Feb., 1944(es,pdf)