Venice city council on Thursday opened the bidding to design a replacement for one of the city's key bridges, the Ponte dell'Accademia.
The current bridge on the site, made of wood and iron, opened in 1933 but was only ever intended as a temporary, stopgap measure, and the city council wants to make it a permanent structure.
The council itself doesn't plan to spend a penny and is instead in search of a sponsor to fork out five million euros, an architect and a building company to present a joint offer by the end of August.
''I think that Venice can aspire to finding someone who wants to link their name with this bridge,'' said public works councillor Mara Rumiz.
Under the council plans, the iron arches supporting the bridge will remain, but the wooden section will be replaced with a new design, either in stone or a metal alloy, and the entire structure given an overhaul.
Rumiz on Thursday admitted that Venetians had become fond of the bridge, and that she expected there would be some polemics.
She said it was necessary to ''overcome'' the idea that Venice was ''made of postcards'' without any structures that ''need to be eliminated''.
Rumiz also said it will be difficult to find a way of making the bridge accessible to the disabled.
''But we like a challenge,'' she added.
The Ponte dell'Accademia, which stands outside the famous Accademia Gallery, is one of just four bridges across Venice's main thoroughfare, the Grand Canal.
The Ponte dell'Accademia is perhaps one of the slowest building projects to ever take shape.
The idea was first discussed seriously in 1488 but was only built four centuries later on a design by British architect Alfred Neville.
This first bridge, made of iron, was inaugurated on 20 November 1854 but had to be torn down within a few decades as a result of wear and tear.
At the time, city planners hoped to replace it with a stone bridge, and an elaborate winning design was even selected.
Until this could be built, however, a temporary wooden bridge designed by the engineer Eugenio Mozzi was erected, and opened to the public in 1933.
Some 75 years later, after a stream of minor and major patch-up jobs to keep it safe, this is the design that still stands today.
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