ARCHITECT ATLAS
Loading atlas
Pont du Gard

Pont du Gard

Photo: Benh LIEU SONG (Flickr) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Vers-Pont-du-Gard, France
Client / Owner
—
Year
Completed 1st century
Access
Public

The Pont du Gard carried the Nîmes aqueduct across the Gardon. Newer excavations suggest it was built between AD 40 and 60. It was long credited to Agrippa around 19 BC, but evidence, including coins no older than Claudius's reign, undermines that date. The article estimates about fifteen years of work by 800 to 1,000 workers.

The bridge is 160 feet (48.8 m) high, with three tiers of arches numbering 6, 11 and 35. The upper tier is 902 feet (275 m) long. The whole aqueduct ran about 31 miles (50 km) with an average gradient of about 1 in 3,000. Builders used no mortar or clamps, and the blocks, some up to six tons, were cut to fit by friction and gravity. The aqueduct supplied about 40,000 cubic meters of water a day.

A road bridge by Henri Pitot was added in 1743 to 1747. Napoleon III's restoration ran from 1855 to 1858. UNESCO listed the bridge in 1985.

Comments

  • Loading comments…
Be kind. Anyone can flag a comment for review.

Sign in

or

Your profile

3 to 24 letters, numbers, underscores or periods. It’s shown with your comments.

Save to list

    Edit information

    We look the building up on Wikipedia for you. Architect Atlas lists buildings that have their own Wikipedia article: our test for notoriety and our source of truth.

        Typology
        Style (one to three)
        Photo (shown in a 4:3 frame)

        Drag and zoom to frame the building well. New photos are checked before they appear.

        Every change is checked before it goes live: facts against Wikipedia, photos by eye.