IS THE SOLKAN STONE BRIDGE ALSO A CULTURAL VALUE?
GORAZD HUMAR
The Solkan Railway Stone Bridge over the Soča River, built in 1906, is not just any bridge. It is the bridge with the largest stone arch among all bridges in the world. Its arch measures a span of 85 m and this world record has been held by the Solkan Bridge since its inception to this day, and it is practically no longer likely that this record will ever be surpassed. Since 1985, the bridge with the largest arch in the world has been categorised in the Republic of Slovenia as a monument of local importance and has unfortunately not yet been given the title of a monument of national importance. Strange? And doesn’t this raise a series of questions about our relationship to the Solkan Bridge?
The Solkan Bridge is primarily a first-class technical attraction, but at the same time it is also an exceptional cultural attraction, which is unfortunately less known to us and requires a little more in-depth knowledge of the bridge itself, and that is the purpose of this article. The fame of the Solkan Bridge was not spread around the world in the way that the bridge itself deserved.
It was built by the Austrians in 1906 and in 1916, during the 6th Battle of the Isonzo, its arch was blown up by Austrian engineers. In 1927, the Italian State Railways rebuilt the arch of the bridge in stone, but after 1947, after the annexation of Primorska to Yugoslavia, the bridge remained in Yugoslavia, and today it is located in Slovenia. It is no longer owned by either the Austrians or the Italians, both of them have somehow forgotten about it, and nowhere in the professional literature in both countries can it be traced back to any records of this landmark, let alone that this bridge is mentioned by anyone as the heritage of one or the other of today’s countries of Austria or Italy. He remained ours, and we may rightly wonder if he is so much ours. Somehow, we don’t know how to do anything special with it or present it as an exceptional global landmark that would put Goriška in the focus of interest of the world public, as is the case, for example, with the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In my opinion, and on the basis of in-depth expertise in the characteristics of both of these constructions, the Solkan Bridge has at least as much engineering know-how, or even more, than the already mentioned Eiffel Tower in Paris. Do we even know this, and does it have any weight for us at all? Nor does it appear to be the case.
When the renovated interior of the renovated Noted-Dame Church in Paris was shown in a live television broadcast to the public in December 2024, the camera repeatedly showed footage of another world landmark in Paris, the Eiffel Tower, which on this occasion was given a new color and ceremonial image as an unambiguous and additional recognizable icon of Paris. In the same TV show, the French successfully combined the image of the two landmarks, which are certainly well known throughout the globe.
At the same time, the question naturally arises as to whether the Solkan Bridge, which is the only wonder of world proportions in the Goriška region, could be ceremonially illuminated at the same time during the opening ceremony of the European Capital of Culture in Nova Gorica. And we could have given him a lot more attention in other ways. It is a little difficult for a good connoisseur of Goriška to bypass the Solkan Bridge.
And in what could we look for the cultural values of the Solkan Bridge? There are several answers, and they offer themselves, so to speak, with at least a little more in-depth view of the bridge and perhaps a good enough at least encyclopedic knowledge of its history, and especially of its buildings.
The bridge is certainly an undeniable icon of Solkan, without which we can hardly imagine this place on the Soča River. On top of that, it has been carrying it since the time it was named after Solkan. Yes, that’s what the Austrian builders named it on the plans for the construction of the bridge. It is therefore first a Solkan, then Goriška and then a Slovenian landmark. In fact, the bridge is all of this at the same time and more. It is at the same time a noble universal technical and cultural good that can be claimed by the entire world civilization. Why? Because the Solkan Bridge over the Soča River combines a lot of knowledge about the art of building stone bridges, which mankind has gradually developed over the millennia. And these skills culminated in the very project and in the way this bridge was built. The paradox of the story of the construction of the Solkan railway bridge lies in the fact that immediately after 1906, man mainly built only reinforced concrete (arch) bridges, and stone as a building material for the construction of large bridges quickly marched into history after several millennia, leaving the city to increasingly cheaper and more useful concrete.
And what is the multiculturalism of the Solkan Bridge? It was built by Austrians with the knowledge of their own engineers, who were then among the leading bridge builders in Europe and also in the world. Nevertheless, in the method of incorporating stone blocks into the arch of the bridge, Austrian engineers used the method developed by French engineers in the construction of large stone bridges. This was a way of evenly and simultaneously applying stone blocks in several separate parts of the arch to balance the application of weights to the supporting scaffold.
In the case of the Solkan Bridge, the best engineering knowledge of bridge construction from the beginning of the 20th century was therefore combined in the design and construction. A large number of nations of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire participated in the construction of the bridge. In addition to Austrians, Italians, Czechs, as well as Slovenes, mainly locals from Solkan, could be found among the workers. The stone for the construction of the bridge came from Nabrežina, where many Slovenians worked in the quarries in addition to other workers, mostly Italians. It is difficult today to measure the proportion of participation of individual nations in the construction of the Solkan Bridge. Each nation can therefore also partially own it in some way.
What is a lesser-known fact is that the bridge, built in 1906, was the only one of the bridges on the Austrian railways to have a railing made in the Art Nouveau architectural style, typical mainly in building architecture from the beginning of the 20th century. The plan of this fence was created in the studio of the famous architect Otto Wagner (Fig. 3), the father of the Viennese Art Nouveau. The bridge was adorned with a beautiful cast-iron massive fence with patterns of stylized cornices, which Art Nouveau architecture liked to use. Interestingly, all four main masonry posts of this fence above the highest pillars of the bridge, where the arch of the bridge began, were also designed in the Art Nouveau style. Such a fence gave the Solkan Bridge a special status of uniqueness, which none of the Austrian railway bridges had. In this way, the bridge was dedicated to the then Emperor Franz Joseph I with Art Nouveau wreaths on the railing. The same type of Art Nouveau fence stands today only in Vienna on a section of the Donaukanallinie city railway, designed by Otto Wagner’s collaborator, Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik. It has also been proven that Jože Plečnik used such a fence in the plans of the railway stations of this Viennese city line.
The fence was completely destroyed during the demolition of the main arch of the bridge in 1916 and we would hardly have known about it if it had not been for the divers who managed to bring some remains of this unique cast-iron fence from the depths of the Soča River in 1999 in an extensive diving campaign. Today, the remains of this fence are exhibited in the Goriška Museum (Fig. 4).
After the First World War, the Bohinj railway line from Podbrdo downwards came under the administration of the Italian State Railways on the basis of the Treaty of Rapallo after 1920. And the Italian seal was added to the Solkan Bridge, which was most evident in the construction of the new and, fortunately, again stone arch of the bridge. From today’s point of view, such a decision of the Italian railway operators was somewhat unusual and anachronistic, because at that time massive bridges were built exclusively of concrete or reinforced concrete. However, it must be frankly admitted to the Italian builders that they have carried out their task technically and architecturally really excellently. The arch itself was slightly thinned compared to the original Austrian arch, which helped to make the arch look more elegant, and only four openings were built above the arch on each side instead of the previous five. The biggest difference, if we compare the former Austrian arch and the current Italian arch, was in the design of the visible stones on the façade of the arch and part of the bridge over the arch. Each stone in this part of the bridge was shaped in a distinct relief in such a way that the edges of all the stones were carved completely smoothly in a width of 3 to 4 cm. With the stones shaped in this way, they visually emphasized the key load-bearing elements of the bridge, which became more visible and separated from the rest of the façade stones, which were completely smoothly made. An almost identical stone-working technique was first used in the construction of the upper part of the Rialto Bridge in Venice in 1591 (Fig. 5). In this way, we can conclude that the pattern of designing the arch openings on the Rialto Bridge was successfully transferred to the Solkan Bridge, where at first glance it unforced but successfully merged into the overall image of the new bridge over the Soča River. With relief-shaped stones, the key load-bearing elements of the bridge were thus more pronounced, which contributed to a more structured appearance of the bridge structure. In this way, a Venetian touch was added to the Solkan Bridge, which was not immediately recognizable to the unconnoisseur. Such an architectural approach certainly contributed to a more pleasant and expressive appearance of the entire bridge structure above the supporting arch (Fig. 6).
Even during the reconstruction of the bridge between 1925 and 1927, a crowd of workers from different parts of Italy, as well as from the wider Gorizia area, as well as locals from Solkan, were present at the bridge. The most outstanding was a group of 16 experienced carpenters from the Cadore Valley, who in more than two and a half months set up the wooden support scaffolding for the construction of the new stone arch.
During the reconstruction of the bridge, it was necessary to remove the remains of the previous arch, which was demolished in 1916, from the bottom of the Soča River. A huge amount of stone accumulated at the bottom of the Soča River severely obstructed the water flow and the level of the Soča River was consequently significantly raised under the bridge. Therefore, the Italian Railways announced a public tender for the removal of the remains of the previous bridge, which was attended by several stonemasons from Gorizia, who needed stone as a raw material for their products. More than two thousand cubic meters of first-class embankment limestone were thus removed from the Soča riverbed. Stonemasons, on the other hand, used the stone primarily for the production of tombstones, mostly in the Gorizia cemetery, which lies just in front of the Gorizia airport in the direction of Mirn. Thus, part of the bridge was moved to this cemetery as well. Solkan and Gorizia are thus connected along this route as well.
Gorizia, Nova Gorica and Solkan are also linked to the activity and heritage left to this area by the Gorizia construction entrepreneur Edoardo Mattiroli. He was born in 1880 near Como and started his own construction business at a young age. Thus, as early as 1904, he allegedly collaborated with the Austrian construction company Redlich und Berger, which was building the Solkan Bridge. After 1920, he greatly increased his construction company in Gorizia, and soon after he led both the reconstruction of the almost completely destroyed Kostanjevica monastery above Nova Gorica (then Gorizia) during the First World War, as well as the renovation of the basilica on Mount Athos, which he completed in 1928. Of course, as a subcontractor of the main contractor, he also participated in the reconstruction of the Solkan Bridge between 1925 and 1927. Goriška construction entrepreneur Edoardo Mattiroli is buried today in the cemetery of the monastery on Mount Athos, in Slovenia, where his three largest buildings in the Goriška region are located (the renovation of the Kostanjevica monastery above Nova Gorica, the renovation of the basilica on Mount Athos and the renovation of the Solkan Bridge). On top of that, shortly after the First World War, he also participated in the reconstruction of the current railway station in Nova Gorica near Europe Square, which was badly damaged during the fighting on the Isonzo front. Its architectural heritage is another of the unifying points of the cities of Gorizia and Nova Gorica, including Solkan.
Solkan Bridge as a cultural value
The famous American bridge builder David B. Steinman (1886-1960) somehow defined the beauty of bridges in this way:
All the elements that make up the structure of a beautiful bridge, such as the harmony of the building with its surroundings, internal harmony, counterpoints, symmetry, rhythm, contrasts and attraction, are similar to those used in music. In this respect, therefore, architectural design is like frozen music. The compositional elements are the same, only expressed in a different way. The only difference is that the view of a beautiful architectural creation makes it possible to experience all its components at the same time.
Such an experience is very much possible with the Solkan Bridge. And even stones can speak, their speech just needs to be able to understand. They can tell us a lot, especially the stones in the bridges. They tell us about the knowledge of the civilizations and generations that built them, as well as about their culture of construction, which was expressed in technical solutions and architectural images of their creations. Thus, the Solkan Bridge mixes the knowledge of Austrian engineering, enriched by the experience of French stone bridge builders, the knowledge of quayside stonemasons, Italian engineering and their knowledge of bridge design. All this is complemented by the activities of people from the (once unitary) Gorizia area, who participated in the construction and renovation of the Solkan Bridge, and in which different borders and different state regulations have been shaking hands throughout the 20th century.
In 2006, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the bridge’s construction, the surroundings of the bridge were at least slightly landscaped with the cooperation of the Solkan Local Community and with the contribution of the construction company Primorje d.d. from Ajdovščina, which was then building the Solkan bypass in the immediate vicinity of the bridge. Access from the Solkan direction to the bridge was arranged and the plateau in front of the bridge itself on the Solkan side of the bridge was leveled. In this way, an interesting event space was created, which calls for the organization of important cultural events. The space is unique on a global scale, as it is enriched by the unique backdrop of the world-famous stone bridge in the background.
Therefore, it is important to realize that the Solkan Bridge is not only an exceptional technical but also an exceptional cultural asset not only of the Goriška area (the one on both sides of the border), but also of the entire European area. As such, it should therefore be given a more appropriate place in a year when both neighbouring cities are European Capitals of Culture. Unfortunately, this opportunity has been largely missed and will no longer be able to be replaced in the future with the kind of resonance that could be achieved in 2025.
Only David B. Steinman’s thoughts would be worth listening to.