Millau Viaduct mid-1998. After undergoing wind tunnel tests, the shape of the road deck was altered, and detailed corrections were made to the design of the pylons. When the details were eventually finalised, the whole design was approved in late 1998. Once the Ministry of Public Works had taken the decision to offer the construction and operation of the viaduct as a grant of contract, an international call for tenders was issued in 1999. Five consortia tendered: Piers were built with Lafarge high performance cement. The pylons of the Millau Viaduct, which are the tallest elements (the tallest pylon – ) were
Millau Viaduct two days later on 16 December. The bridge has been consistently ranked as one of the great engineering achievements of all time, and received the 2006 Outstanding Structure Award from the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering. In the 1980s, high levels of road traffic near Millau in the Tarn valley were causing congestion, especially in the summer due to holiday traffic on the route from Paris to Spain. A method of bypassing Millau had long been considered, not only to ease the flow and reduce journey times for long distance traffic, but also to improve the quality of