The Spirit of Bridges

by Ivan Jablonka
, 29 August 2019

What’s more ordinary than a bridge? However, a bridge is a living structure that has to be designed, built and maintained. Here is our interview with a legendary bridge designer, who is also a man skilled in the art.

A graduate of the École Polytechnique, a road and bridge engineer, Michel Virlogeux is one of the world’s leading specialists in bridges and viaducts. In 1980, he became head of the concrete bridge division of the Setra, the technical department of the Ministry of Equipment, and in 1987 head of the steel and concrete bridges division. In 1995, he became an engineering consultant. During his career, he designed about a hundred bridges, including the Normandy Bridge (1995), the Millau Viaduct (2004), the Térénez Bridge (2010), the Chaban-Delmas Bridge in Bordeaux (2013) and Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge on the Bosphorus (2015).

Filming & editing: Ariel Suhamy. Interview by Ivan Jablonka.