North of the city of Rijeka, on the motorway at the point where the vistas of the sea first open up, a motorway service complex is planned with the fitting name “Gates to the Adriatic”. The complex will accommodate two petrol stations, two restaurants with an info-centre, and a pedestrian bridge over the motorway. The bridge was designed by architects Randić and Turato in 1998 and was constructed in 1999.
The underlying commercial logic of the project left no space (read funds) for cosmetic interventions. The circumstances forced the architects to focus on a bridge shorn of anything superficial, that is, the bridge was to be bare to the bone. If a single bone were taken away, the skeleton would crumble. Indeed, there is not a single part of the bridge whose absence would not jeopardise its function or statics. It is fortunate that asceticism has never implied primitivism.