ALTRAD provides reliable and elegant scaffolding to refurbish the Széchenyi chain Bridge in Budapest

The Széchenyi Bridge is a chain bridge that spans the River Danube between Buda and Pest, the western and eastern sides of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Its construction started in 1839 and it was opened 10 years later, in 1849.

At the time of its construction, it was regarded as one of the modern world’s engineering wonders. It has asserted an enormous significance in the country’s economic, social and cultural life, as much as the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and in the US. Over the years, it has become a symbol of advancement and national awakening, and nowadays, it is one of the mostly shown structure in connection with Budapest in Hungary.

The bridge ensures the connection between Pest (where the Parliament is located) and the ”Buda” part of the city (Buda was the ancient capital of the country and since 1873 it has been the western part of the Budapest, on the west bank of the Danube, which is the hilly side of the city where most of the churches and the castle can be found).

The bridge is 380 metres long. Its renovation has recently started and the planning regarding the scaffolding happens to be a very delicate part of the project, as the traffic under the bridge is intense. Besides, we have needed to design and produce specific lattice holders. In addition, usual wooden desks were obviously not accepted. It was even compulsory to provide elegant adapted plattforms as these ones would be widely seen, at least for 2 years, by the people and of course the growing number of tourists. In this respect, our special plattform profiles were accepted (these are specially designed for Altrad Alucon; we sell them to the Hungarian nuclear power plant every year in small quantities for repair work). We sourced them from our usual Turkish supplier, Asas, which now happens to be a strong partner. When it comes to the beams, they are all manufactured by Altrad Alucon.