eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture 2328-3998 2013-04-07 1 1 47 51 10.12691/ajcea-1-2-5 AJCEA2013125 article Slawomir Karas Corresponding author: s.karas@pollub.pl 1 Road and Bridge Chair, Lublin University of Technology (LUT), Poland Seeking the origins of the reinforced concrete (RC) technology, one certainly meets the name of François Hennebique. His genius and powerful organisation, known as Le Béton Armé Systéme Hennebique, were crusial for developing RC in theory and practice. And it is bridges that played a significant role in his activity. Nowadays, the city of Lublin, Poland, may pride itself on two bridges in Hennebique technology, the heritage of those great days. The following is a concise account of the successful restoration of one of the two bridges but also a presentation of the other one being in great need of renovation. The bridges mentioned above were constructed by the Polish engineer Marian Lutos?awski, who highly deserves being treated as a RC pioneer. The structure of Lublin's bridges was thoroughly examined in many aspects, especially by applying a FEM analysis, non-destructive methods and a testing compressive strength on the cores taken. The carrying load capacity was estimated in accordance with the Polish standards and Eurocodes. As a result of the restoration there appeared a possibility of formulating a thesis on the concept of the RC beam Hennebique bridges as a modified form of beam wooden ones. The arguments which definitely prove the thesis have been formulated. Both of the bridges mentioned above constitute a significant contribution to the world's RC technical heritage. http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajcea/1/2/5/ajcea-1-2-5.pdf historic bridges Hennebique restoration RC