Inhabiting Infrastructure Through the Centuries: Two Hybrid Bridges in Florence

The condition of hybridity in architecture has often been traced back to quite recent phenomena and confined to specific geographic contexts. However, it is also possible to find processes of architectural hybridisation in significantly older times and in widespread contexts. Considering the peculiarity of the hybrid object, which involves heterogeneous elements that “relate to one another and begin to share intensities” and expanding the scope of research to previously unexplored themes, the aim of this contribution is to consider the hybrid in a more extensive way and demonstrate the numerous configurations in which it can manifest. This study seeks to examine some of these possible configurations, focusing on a less-explored area such as hybrid infrastructures. Emphasis will be placed on the inhabited bridge, an exceptional declination of infrastructure that left its mark on cities from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, disappearing from the urban landscape but persisting in the imaginations of designers, so much so that it finally reasserted itself from the 19th century onward. The Ponte Vecchio is a pioneer of the inhabited bridge, and the Giovanni da Verrazzano Bridge can be considered a recent descendant of the former. The two can represent the poles of an evolutionary path connected by a subtle common thread: their shared geographical location, Florence.