History
On 29 July 1833, to celebrate his accession to the throne following the "Trois Glorieuses" (the three glorious days of the July Revolution), Louis-Philippe laid the first stone for a previously-nameless suspension bridge, located on the extension of the Rue du Pont Louis Philippe. Built by Marc Seguin and his brothers, it crossed the Seine to the Île Saint-Louis. It was opened to traffic one year later, on 26 July 1834. After the French Revolution of 1848 (during which the bridge and its tollhouses were burnt down), it was restored and renamed "Pont de la Réforme", a name it held until 1852.
In the face of increased traffic (the tollhouses had not been restored), it was demolished to be replaced by the present structure in 1860. This new structure, an arch bridge, was built by the engineers, Edmond-Jules Féline-Romany and Jules Savarin, between August 1860 and April 1862, a little further upstream than its predecessor. The Pont Louis-Philippe was inaugurated in April 1862. The spandrels above the four-metre-wide piers in the Seine are decorated with stone laurel wreaths surrounding metallic rosettes.
The only modification since then (unlike its much-modified contemporary, the Pont de Bercy) was the replacement of the stone guardrails (badly damaged by pollution) with replica railings in 1995.
Read more about this topic: Pont Louis-Philippe
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)