Michele Rasore
About This Site

• Info
• Contact
• About Rasore

• On-going
• Al Dente Sans
• Photographic issues II
• User Generated Vocabulary
• Photographic issues

• Projects 2008
• Slices of the Green Belt
• Slices of the Green Belt Prototypes
• Missing Planets Helpline
• Housing (II)

• Projects 2007 and before
• A charming Grade II listed....
• I like rules
• Housing
• La Soif
• The botanical garden
• Crawford, Texas
• A maritime self-portrait
• Jelly Beans tribute
• The enigmatic cycle of Ashes
• Designing is a bit like..
• The spaghetti bridge
• The football pitch
• Anxious self-portrait
• The postcard
• The uninspired cycle (hair)
• The uninspired cycle (nails)
• The uninspired cycle (coffee)
• Food for Thought I
• Food for Thought II
• Happy Easter!
• The Western values

• Recipe of the Month
• Spaghetti with broccoli and ginger (III)
• Red wine risotto (II)
• Scallops au gratin (I)

• Tea time philosophy
• Lost image anyone?
• Contextualisation as Generalisation

Copyright 2007 Michele Rasore.
All rights reserved.
The usual stuff.

The spaghetti bridge

Background

The Messina strait bridge project has been hassling Italians for ages now. Someone in the 70s had the very bad idea to think about connecting Sicily to mainland Italy through the longest single span bridge in the world and since then chaos has been ruling.
A monumentally moronic project to be built in a highly seismic area with a very unclear environmental impact: how could Berlusconi not love it. It was the perfect symbol of what he stood for, the sort of men's club "Mine is longer than yours" attitude. Truly pathetic as all this was, he was merely resurrecting a project that since the 70s has been popping out every now and then in various elections and party programs. The construction of the bridge (finally approved by Mr Berlusconi) was halted in the second half of 2006 by the newly elected government, being the project totally nonsensical and obviously not financially viable. Try to imagine a bridge spanning for 3.3 km between two of the most commercially depressed regions in Italy. Try to imagine a bridge that would accommodate 6000 cars/hour and 200 trains a day maximum in a place where there are currently approximately 6400 cars passing the strait daily, notwithstanding the fact that in Sicily the average speed of trains is 24km/h.
Just to make the point on the situation, after 36 years we have a more or less a final blueprint and a project that keeps being cancelled and rescheduled every odd year. How can you possibly build the longest single span bridge in the world with a more or less final blueprint is well beyond my understanding. What more than this to embed the crazy disorganization and highly creative approach characterizing all Italian endeavours?

My way, my bridge

In this pathetic farce I ought a contribution, I thought.
I set off to build a scaled down version of the bridge, using cord, raw spaghetti, pvc glue and lasagna sheets only. Being a feat of serious engineering I wanted a bridge able to sustain oscillations as well. For this reason the main considerations were about the relation between rigidity, flexibility and the actual weight of the horizontal structure. I came up with a solution where underneath the lasagna sheets there were 2 long stretches 10 spaghetti wide glued in certain "breaking" points to let the spaghetti retain a certain degree of flexibility. After a flat out week the bridge was ready, which compares very favourably to 36 years to have some sort of blueprint ready. Its length is 2 mt and if we include the cables it reaches 4 mt.The first version even boasted a bolognaise sauce stream underneath. This is the ultimate metaphor about the Italian way in politics. The debate about the bridge on Messina Strait has been gripping my country for years now. Discussing about something decidedly futile for ages it is a remarkable trait of our political class. However, discussing about something decidedly futile for 36 years seemed to me an outstanding achievement that needed celebrating in an appropriate way. For more details on the real, laughable project please visit www.strettodimessina.it, there is also an english version.