Djurdjevića Tara Bridge – one of the largest reinforced concrete road bridges in Europe
Built-in the period from 1938 to 1940, it was the largest reinforced concrete road bridge in Europe at the time. The bridge was initially built to connect the remote parts of the Durmitor region with the rest of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The task was to connect almost 400 meters of two coasts of the river Tara, which was extremely difficult given the need for construction materials and aid at the time.
Still, this has not stopped its designer Mijat Trojanovic, from constructing the most significant wooden scaffolding, whose dimensions have not been surpassed to this day. The height of the scaffolding of the main arch was 141 meters, while 650 cubic meters of timber were used for its construction. The wooden parts of the scaffolding were hand-hewn from spruce, cut down in a nearby forest. According to available data, 5,320 m3 of non-reinforced and 3,640 m3 of reinforced concrete were installed on the bridge.
The bridge did not wait to be ceremonially opened as it was completed at the time of the start of WWII. During World War II, to prevent the enemy units from penetrating Montenegro in 1942, a decision was made by the highest Yugoslavian establishment to demolish the bridge so it could be later repaired. This ungrateful task was given to the civil engineer Lazar Jaukovic, who participated in the bridge’s construction. The structure of the last small arc on the left bank of Tara was demolished, while other parts of the bridge remained undamaged. Jaukovic was later shot on the bridge itself by the occupation forces after they discovered what he had done.
After reconstruction, the bridge became very popular, both because of its world-scale construction and because of the stories from the Second World War that took place around it. In the seventies, the famous American actor Harrison Ford shot footage of the war film ‘Force from Navarone on this bridge. With its grace, the bridge leaves in awe everybody who sets afoot here for the first time as it leans over the stunning river Tara, widely known to all nature lovers.
The bridge leaves in awe everybody who sets afoot here for the first time as it leans over the stunning river Tara, widely known to all nature lovers. The canyon of the river Tara, over which the bridge extends, is 1333 meters deep, which makes it the deepest in Europe and second in the world, after the famous canyon of the river Colorado. The ‘tear of Europe’ is embraced by the imposing 365-meter-long bridge with five arches, of which the main arc spans 116 meters.
Author: Vuk Crnojević
IG Photo Credits @vuk.brajovic
