The con­struc­tion of the Eras­mus Bridge, for which Ben van Ber­kel made the ori­gi­nal de­sign in 1989, has begun in 1994 and will be fi­nis­hed au­tumn 1996. Van Ber­kel & Bos is co-operating with the De­part­ment of Works of Rot­ter­dam on the working drawings. We also have se­pa­rate com­mis­si­ons for se­veral projects be­longing to the bridge, such as the street fur­ni­ture, par­king ga­rage and har­bour boat buil­ding. Fur­ther­more we su­per­vise the qua­lity of the steel and con­crete works, the river banks and the light­ing de­sign of the bridge.

The 139 m. tall pylon will be­come a new point of ori­en­ta­tion, con­nec­ted with, and an­noun­cing the new de­ve­lop­ments in the 'Kop van Zuid' area. The asym­metric form, with its bra­cket con­struc­tion in sky co­lou­red steel and its long ca­bles, con­veys the 'mobile forces', that is to say, the multi­tude of pu­blic, urban, con­struc­tive and ar­chi­tec­tu­ral con­side­ra­ti­ons that have been at the basis of the bridge.

All de­tails of the bridge have been trea­ted in­te­grally, from the five dif­fer­ently shaped con­crete piers, to the rai­lings, the lan­dings, the joints of con­crete and con­crete, steel and steel, con­crete and steel. The fi­nish of each part is of cru­cial im­port­ance to the ma­te­ria­liza­t­ion of the whole.

A light­ing plan was made to em­pha­size the mul­ti­ple iden­tity of the bridge as an urban ar­ti­fact. At night, when the ap­pearance of the bridge is re­du­ced to a sil­hou­ette, spe­cial light­ing from the in­side will show up the in­te­rior of the bridge, with its bund­led ca­bles ri­sing stee­ply above the water as a de­ma­te­ria­li­zed image of its day­time self.