Railings at the side porticos of the Si-o-Se Pol, a historical bridge in Isfahan Province, will be removed to open public access to the cozy corners, a senior heritage official said.
As part of a long-debated project which became operational in late May, railings are being set up at the bridge to prevent fatal falls from the high openings of the structure over Isfahan's Zayanderud River.
However, extension of the fences to the side corridors is mostly aimed to protect the structure from some visitors' misbehavior, ISNA reported.
According to Ali Mohammad Fasihi, director of the monitoring office of the province's historical bridges, extending the guardrails to the side porticos was actually part of a plan approved by the technical council at the provincial office of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization.
"The decision was made because people used to cause damage both to the environment and the structure itself," Fasihi said, adding that the plan aimed to prevent vandalism by people who carved on the bridge's walls and littered around.
Shift of Focus
"However at the latest meeting, heritage authorities concluded that the side porticos should be reopened to the public and instead, in order to curb the problem, measures should be taken to raise public awareness about the serious damage they might inflict to the age-old bridge."
Jafar Kasaian, an expert on historical structures who had once restored and reinforced the bridge over 50 years ago, explained the function and features of the blocked sideways and said "the corridors are built in a way to produce a cool wind blow, making them a suitable place for passengers to take a rest."
Underscoring the historical importance of the side porticos, Kasaian explained that in old times, the corridors separated the main passageway where caravans would pass from resting areas where people would settle to chill out, helping prevent chaos.
The fences, he added, deny public access to the place in order to stop a small number of offenders, but limitation has never been an effective solution, he added.
The fences include nine rows of thick metal wires supported with two metal posts driven into the floor behind the bridge pillars, allowing them to hide from view.
Safety concerns came to the fore after the tragic deaths of a two-year-old and a 17-year-old boy who fell off the edge of the bridge overlooking the dried up bed of Zayanderud in September 2016 and January 2017 respectively.
Reports of the first death prompted the provincial ICHHTO to take prompt action, drilling holes at one of the bridge's openings to set up a fence a few days later. The move met immediate outcry from cultural heritage experts who called it a hasty appendage to the structure that mars its historical feature.
A month later, Nasser Taheri, cultural heritage deputy at Isfahan's ICHHTO office, announced that the scheme was suspended, pending further study.
After much debate over the form of the fences, the current shape was finally approved and installation is now underway.
