Carlo is on the panel to select the design of a Yarra River bridge from Burnley Street to Williams Road

In 1892, the City of Richmond and the City of Prahran held a series of conferences,  the objective of which was to have a bridge erected over the Yarra River to join Burnley Street, Richmond and Williams Road, Prahran.  A design competition was held - the conditions being that the bridge was not to cost more than £9,000, that it had a clear length of waterway of 300 feet, and a width of roadway of 24 feet.

There were 23 entries and an expert panel was organised to select the top five entries. The panel consisted of Carlo Catani and Mr. Clayton, surveyor, of Richmond, and Mr. Smith, surveyor of Prahran. The Prahran Telegraph, of May 11, 1892 (read full report, here) had a description of the five bridges -
"Cantilever, No. 2," a very handsome, longspan plate iron girder bridge, with the roadway on top, crossing the river at a great angle.
"Stet" another longspan top deck bridge, designed for erection on either of two routes, making a lesser angle. This is also a handsome bridge, although the iron columns carrying the centre span of 140 feet and two side spans of about 90 feet are only 2 feet 6 inches in diameter, and appear to be too small.
"Sub Rosa" is a four-span bridge, the two centre spans having arched lattice girders, standing above the roadway like those of the Cremorne railway bridge, and have footpaths outside of them. This bridge is designed for a sight at right angles to the river.

This is the Toolamba Railway bridge over the Goulburn River - the bridge design "Lever" was described as a copy of this bridge (see below)

Toolamba 1893 H 2331 GLSB/W. 

Public Records Office of Victoria: Photographic Collection: Railway Negatives: Alpha-numeric Systems (VPRS12800)

"Lever" is a three-span single system open lattice girder bridge, with a top deck. The girders are in fact copies of the successful railway bridge over the Goulburn at Toolamba. Like "Cantilever" and "Stet," its side girders are cantilevered over the piers, and the intervening space is filled in with a girder of same design, resting on single pins 6 inches in diameter, flattened to 4 inches thick, to act as expansion joints in the middle of the depth of the truss. In the others the centre girders are carried on plates rivetted on the cantilevers and form expansion joints like those in the Flinders-street viaduct.
All these bridges have iron decks covered with concrete and wood blocks, cast iron cornices and hand rails, stone or brick abutments, some of them of an ornate character, and all have their decks at a great height above the river.
"Rivet" is a bridge of more modest pretensions. It has no brick or stone abutments, iron deck, wood blocking, or iron parapet. The abutments are the sloping ends of low embankments faced with stone, a macadamised roadway carried on wooden planks, resting on rolled iron joists, which in turn are carried by 12 plate steel girders 60 feet long by 5 feet deep, supported by wrought and cast iron columns filled with concrete of the usual river pattern, but ornamented with moulded capitals and bases. This bridge has a graceful camber from end to end, the under side of the girder being 2 feet above high flood lines at the ends and 4 feet in the centre. It is full of economies, and it may be safely put down as the least expensive of any of the designs sent in. It is of the same class as the Swan-street bridge, with spans nearly twice as long, and the metal disposed of to greater advantage. A pretty adaptation to circumstance is noticeable in the end girders, which are carried on cast iron columns in the embankments, and have their ends formed as cantilevers, with the lower sides sloping parallel to the embankment, thus reducing, as far as possible, the amount of timber abutment required for expansion and retaining the metal on the roadway. 

The Burnley Street/Williams Road bridge turned out to be saga. The bridge was not built at the time and in 1894 the newspapers had a flurry of reports about a renewed push by the councils  to have the bridge built, however by then the Prahran Council said that finances would not allow the council to proceed with the work (The Argus, October 2 1894)

The matter was back on the agenda in 1900 when the Councils had a meeting with the Minister for Public Works and the suggestion was made to move a redundant iron footbridge  to the site and enlarge and strengthen it. However, Mr. Fink, M L A., who was at the meeting said it would be better to wait and erect a Monier bridge, which would be a cheap structure. This idea was accepted and the councils and Mr Davidson, Inspector General of Works, would confer with the council as to the cost of  Monier Bridge. (Prahran Telegraph, March 17, 1900)  I do no have any proof but I would assume that Carlo would have been involved in this process as he had already worked with the Monier reinforced concrete method of bridge construction with the Anderson Street bridge.

In 1927, there was another attempt to have the bridge constructed when A letter from the Richmond Council to the Board of Works asking the board to consider the advisability of erecting a bridge in Burnley street, Richmond and Williams road Prahran to enable motorists living east of Chapel street to pass through Richmond from the city on their way home, thus relieving congestion at Princes' Bridge, and at Church street bridge was unfavorably received. (The Herald, July 5, 1927) ' 'Unfavorably received' the proposal may have been by the Board of Works, but that didn't stop the Councils in their quest to get their bridge. There are few reports in the papers in the 1930s for renewed attempts to have the bridge erected, but the hopes of the two Councils were finally crushed by Sir Macpherson Robertson.

Sir Macpherson Robertson (1859 - 1945), businessman and entrepreneur and established the MacRobertson Steam Confectionery Works, who made the  Freddo Frog, Cherry Ripe and Old Gold Chocolate, amongst other products. To celebrate Victoria's centenary, Robertson provided £100,000 for public works. MacRobertson Girls' High School was one of the projects and another was for the Centenary bridge across the Yarra. The Government decided that the bridge should be at Grange Road. A meeting was held in August 1933 of nine councils -  Brighton, Caulfield, Hawthorn, Heidelberg, Kew, Prahran, Richmond, Sandringham and St Kilda and they were largely against the proposal that the bridge be located at Grange Road, they preferred Burnley Street/Williams Road. Their protestations were to  no avail and the Centenary Bridge was built at Grange Road and officially opened on November 5, 1934.

With the construction of the Centenary Bridge so close to the Burnley Street/ Williams Road potential crossing, this bridge was never going to be constructed, so Carlo's efforts in selecting the five best designs in 1892, were wasted, but perhaps they may have been used for other bridges somewhere else,  I do not know. Next time I am at the Public Records Office, I will see if the bridge designs still exist.

These are two photos of the construction of the  MacRobertson Centenary Bridge from the Public Records Office of Victoria.

 Construction of the  MacRobertson Centenary Bridge at Grange Road, which ended all hope of a bridge connecting Burnley Street, Richmond to Williams Road, Prahran.

Grange Road MacRobertsons Bridge Construction c. 1930'S GLS bridge. C 0903.

Public Records Office of Victoria: Photographic Collection: Railway Negatives: Alpha-numeric Systems (VPRS12800)

 Construction of the  MacRobertson Centenary Bridge at Grange Road, which ended all hope of a bridge connecting Burnley Street, Richmond to Williams Road, Prahran.
Grange Road MacRobertsons Bridge Construction c. 1930'S GLS bridge. C 0907.

Public Records Office of Victoria: Photographic Collection: Railway Negatives: Alpha-numeric Systems (VPRS12800)