The postcard above takes us back to Brussels around 1970. In those days a highway viaduct existed along the largely residential Boulevard Leopold II. In the 1980’s the elevated road was demolished and rebuilt in Thailand, or so the story goes.

The Leopold II viaduct was a product of the postwar vision that cities should be accessible by car to be attractive. It was built to improve traffic during the World’s Fair of 1958 and connected the brand new ring road around central Brussels with the highway to Oostende. Announced as a temporary measure, the viaduct stayed for over 25 years, attracting ever more cars and chasing away residents. It was finally torn down in 1984 and replaced with a 2,5 kilometer-long tunnel.

The classic story is that the dismantled bridge was shipped to Thailand and rebuilt in Bangkok. But according to this article things are a bit more complicated. The Bangkok bridge would have been made up of parts of another temporary bridge that was put up next to the viaduct during its demolition (see picture below from Wikipedia).

In any case Belgian engineers constructed Bangkok’s first of many flyovers with used parts from a Brussels bridge as a gift from the Belgian government. This way the minister of Public Works hoped to get orders for more bridges and also buses. As this didn’t happen, the taxpayer-funded operation of moving the bridge was rather controversial.

The investment was not useless for the Thai though, because the so called Thai Belgian Bridge still stands after a second life of more than 25 years. Not bad for a temporary construction even if it seems that the bridge is now temporary closed for repairs. (Bangkok photo squaremarie-louise41.blogspot.be)