At the 2006 International Bridge Conference held in Pennsylvania, America, Dagu Bridge, which is designed by Tianjin Urban Construction Design Institute and constructed by Tianjin Urban Construction Group, won the famous award — Eugene C. Figg Medal.

This is the first time for a Tianjin Bridge to win the top award after the Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge of Jiangsu Province in 2002 and the Lupu Bridge of Shanghai in 2004. It was said in the award reasons that: “Tianjin Dagu Bridge becomes a landmark building because of its incredible image and innovation as well as the outstanding achievement in bridge field”.

Eugene C. Figg Award is the top award in international bridge design, which was named after famous bridge designer — Eugene C. Figg. It is established by International Bridge Conference to commend those landmark bridges full of imagination which were recently built. The first Eugene C. Figg Medal was issued in June, 2002. It is very strict to assess the bridges. If there is no one bridge could meet the terms of award, the award would be left to the next year. On the other side, if there are more than one bridge meeting the terms of award, only one bridge could win the bridge.

Based on the design of renowned bridge designer — Deng Wenzhong, Dagu Bridge was preliminarily designed by the joint effort of Tianjin Urban Construction Design Institute and T.Y.LIN INTERNATIONAL. After that, the construction design plan was completed by Tianjin Urban Construction Design Institute. The construction work was undertaken by the Third Company, the Fifth Company and Facility Company of Tianjin Urban Construction Group.

The design concept of Dagu Bridge is “Sun and Moon Arches”, which was made up of two asymmetry arches. The height of the bigger arch is 39 meters. It faces east and symbolizes the sun. The smaller arch stands at 19 meters in height. It faces west and symbolizes the moon. The length of the bridge is 154 meters, with three-span continuous beam system. The design is unique and full of modern elements. Dagu Bridge fully interprets the tendency of bridge designing and building, which emphasizes on safe application, beautiful landscape, technical innovation and cost efficiency.

The construction of Dagu Bridge kicked off on July 6, 2003. The pavement of asphalt concrete was complete on August 6, 2004. The bridge surface is paved by epoxy asphalt concrete, which solved the problem of connecting steel structure surface and asphalt concrete. This is the first use of this technology in North China. The bridge was open for traffic on November 27, 2005.