Pieter Caland, who gave his name to the bridge and the canal it crosses, laid the foundation for the development of the port of Rotterdam into one of the largest seaports in the world with the design and construction of the Nieuwe Waterweg at the end of the 19th century.

In the 1960s, a land connection between the port areas of Botlek and Europoort still separated this section from the canal, which was used for road and rail traffic and, from 1966, for the construction of the Calandbrug.

Due to their high superstructures, these types of ships had considerable problems passing through the 46-metre-wide opening of the lift bridge in strong winds.

To protect the bridge, passage had to be prohibited at wind speeds of 30 km/h and above, which severely restricted access to the port section, especially in the winter months.

In search of a solution, the port authority decided to build a 1.8-kilometre-long partially permeable wind barrier on the west side of the canal.

The Windscherm Calandkanaal is made up of a large number of reinforced concrete elements up to 25 meters high and was designed in 1983 by Joop Schilperoord in collaboration with the architect Maarten Struijs and the sculptor Frans de Wit.

At the same time, the dead weight of the orthotropic deck slab in the area of the tracks was also increased to minimize driving noise.

The rope hoist system is driven by four DC motors, two of which are connected via a shaft that runs in the upper crossbeam between the towers.

At the time of its completion in 1986, the 1750 m long wind barrier on the west bank of the Caland Canal (Windscherm Calandkanaal) consisted of three parts due to the terrain.

Starting at the southern end in front of the northern head of the Rozenburg lock, 22 free-standing semi-circular reinforced concrete shells were erected, each 12 m apart, with a height of 25 m and an outer diameter of 18 m. At the height of the bridge, two separate connected structures were chosen due to the necessary openings for road traffic and the roads running parallel to the canal, which were erected about 70 m behind the line of the southern row of shells and overlapping with it.

The reinforced concrete structures in the middle section therefore consist of 22 or 36 narrower shells with an outer diameter of 4 m, each arranged at a distance of 1.3 m and connected to each other by particularly torsion-resistant solid beams; the total height here is also 25 m. The northern part consists of a 15 m high earth embankment on which 49 10 m long and high reinforced concrete slabs were erected.

These also overlap with the central section and are set back a further 15 m.Calculations and model tests showed a maximum reduction in wind speeds with 25% permeability of the overall structure and an orientation of the concrete shells with their inwardly curved surfaces to the west.

Due to the construction of the Thomassentunnel and the Theemsweg route, some of the large concrete shells on the south side of the bridge had to be relocated or removed.