You may not know its name, but you’ve definitely seen Los Angeles’ original Sixth Street Viaduct. Built in 1932 to span the L.A. River, railroad tracks, and local roads, the 3,500-foot-long Art Deco structure— the longest of 14 historic bridges that cross the river—has appeared in dozens of films, TV shows, and commercials. After a seismic study in 2004, engineers concluded that it had to be torn down because its concrete supports were deteriorating from within. Preservationists fought to maintain the icon, but in 2016, it was demolished. Nevertheless, thanks in large part to their efforts, in 2012 the city’s Bureau of Engineering held its first-ever international design competition to replace it. The selected scheme, “The Ribbon of Light,” will be the largest bridge project in L.A.’s history at nearly $500 million, which will be funded primarily by federal and state transportation sources. Local architect Michael Maltzan, who won the competition with engineering and architecture firm HNTB, hopes the new bridge will transform the city and the idea of infrastructure itself.

The new span will feature 10 pairs of ribbonlike concrete arches, a nod to the old one’s twin pairs of steel arches. When finished in 2020, it will reconnect two neighborhoods vastly different from each other: Boyle Heights to the east, once a Jewish enclave and now largely a working-class Mexican-American neighborhood, and the Arts District to the west, a former industrial zone that’s rapidly morphing into a mixeduse community of lofts, condos, and creative businesses.