The Landwasser Viaduct (German: Landwasserviadukt) is a single-track six-arched curved limestone railway viaduct. It spans the Landwasser between Schmitten and Filisur, in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. Designed by Alexander Acatos, the Landwasser Viaduct was constructed between 1901 and 1902 by Müller & Zeerleder on behalf of the Rhaetian Railway, which both owns and operates it through to the present day. A signature structure of the World Heritage-listed Albula Railway, it is 65 metres (213 ft) high, 136 metres (446 ft) long; its southeastern abutment connects directly to the Landwasser Tunnel. During 2009, the Landwasser Viaduct underwent renovation work for the first time since its original construction.

It's dark, then light again instantly. The train comes out of one tunnel only to go right into the next one. In between stands a masterpiece of bridge art, a jewel of the UNESCO World Heritage section of the Rhaetian Railway: the Landwasser Viaduct near Filisur. In a wide arc, it crosses – as it has been doing since 1902 – the torrent which rushes 65 meters below.

Between Thusis and St. Moritz the Landwasser viaduct is the most spectacular construction on the 63 kilometers long Albula stretch. And the Albula and Bernina routes of the scenic Rhaetian railway form part of the UNESCO World Heritage list since mid July 2008 – as first of three railway lines worldwide.

The construction of the main pillars of the Landwasser viaduct in 1901/1902 was considered a huge architectural feat, as this took place without scaffolding and solely two cranes. And 106 years later, in the year 2009, the masonry and track trough of the viaduct were repaired for the very fist time. The viaduct wall of natural dolomite lime is 142 meters long and at 65 meters high extends in a curve over the rugged Landwasser Valley and inside a tunnel, the entrance of which is on a vertical rock wall.

From the Filisur village you reach a beautiful vantage point in just half an hour on foot, from where you have amazing views of the viaduct. Next a path leads either down to the river, under the viaduct and into a ravine, or at the fork to the lookout point in around 2 hours and on to the Wiesner viaduct. This viaduct you can cross on a footpath while enjoying incredible in-depth views down under.

Though the Solis Viaduct is the highest bridge of the Rhaetian Railway, the Filisur Viaduct exceeds it in sheer size: at over 9000 cubic metres, it has about three times the mass of the Solis viaduct. The reason for this can be found in the 50-metre-high pillars, which were built without scaffolding and which follow each other every 15 metres due to the relatively narrow span of the arches. The reason for this narrow span is that the viaduct describes a curve with a radius of only 100 metres.

How could the structure be built without scaffolding? It was decided to give up the idea of scaffolding towers due to the danger posed by flooding. Instead two bridge cranes were used, the iron towers of which were continually built into the pillars. The breathtaking view of the Viaduct lets the engineering aspects fade into the background. The 136-meter-long bridge does not just make an elegant turn over the wild valley below, but also to the south-east it goes into the sheer cliff face, into a 200-metre-long tunnel.

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