The Bridge over the Słudwia

The bridge over the Słudwia river in Maurzyce near Łowicz, completed in 1928, was the world's first welded road bridge. The structure designed by engineer Stefan Bryła measures 27 metres in length and nearly 7 metres in width. Joining the elements by welding instead of riveting produced an object far lighter than the standards of the day — at the time a technological revolution, today a monument to the engineering ambition of interwar Poland.

The designer

In the interwar period Stefan Bryła was at once a practitioner, scientist and lecturer, as well as a member of parliament. His best-known building remains the Prudential house in Warsaw, the tallest pre-war skyscraper of the capital, which withstood artillery and aerial bombardment during the Warsaw Uprising. Maurzyce shows another face of the same career: the courage to reach for a technology the world was only beginning to test.

Visiting

The bridge stands on national road no. 92 linking Kutno with Łowicz, so you can view it without leaving your route. It is best to stop for a moment by the river and look at the truss from the side — only from this perspective can you appreciate how narrow the welded joints are, the joints that changed bridge engineering in 1928. In the area it is also worth planning a visit to the castle in Oporów and the Narrow-Gauge Railway Museum in Sochaczew.