Webcam with a view of the stone bridge and the old town of Riga.
The Stone Bridge, a road bridge spanning the Daugava River in Riga, Latvia, connects the 11 November embankment (the city center on the right bank) with Uzvaras Boulevard (Pardaugava, left bank of the Daugava).
Upstream lies the Railway Bridge, while downstream is the Cable-stayed Bridge.
Prior to the construction of this permanent bridge, the site was occupied by the Pontoon Bridge, which was built in 1896.
The design and planning of the permanent bridge were undertaken at the Moscow Institute “Proektstalkonstruktsiya,” led by engineer G. D. Popov and architect K. I. Yakovlev. Construction work commenced in 1955.
During the design phase, it was envisioned that the beams would be mounted on the shore with a longitudinal slide into the span.
The structure of the span is engineered to maintain a horizontal bottom of the beam throughout the entire length of the span, while the top of the beam follows a broken line for 143.75 m on each side, becoming horizontal in the middle section of the span for a length of 179.4 m.
The supporting components are situated at varying levels, with a 3.7 m difference between the outer and middle supports. This arrangement causes the beam to bend under its own weight when installed on the supporting parts.
The Stone Bridge was inaugurated on July 21, 1957.