Well at least they’re getting some practice for this.
“Bologna’s Garisenda, the ‘leaning tower’ has stood tipsily – but steadily – for nearly 1,000 years. But following investigations last month, the city is instigating a civil protection plan for the “sudden and unexpected collapse of the tower,” which has dominated the Bologna skyline since the 12th century.
A protective metal cordon will be erected to “contain debris resulting from a possible collapse, to reduce the vulnerability of surrounding buildings and the exposure to the population, as well as blocking access to the off-limits area,” the city council said in a statement.
**TL;DR:** Climate change and its amplification of floods in Italy will speed up the collapse of this 12th Century legend.
I wouldn’t think it’d be difficult to build a framework around a tower that would hold it up while the foundations were reworked. Ground isn’t able to support it? Dig a hole 1300 feet deep and 500 feet wide, fill it with reinforced concrete with spikes 100 feet long sticking down diagonally, or whatever it takes. If you don’t want to do that, demolish the tower. Build tower 2.0 or just sell the land.
Note this isn’t the Leaning Tower of Pisa
“in Bologna”
TIL.
Damn, I climbed that tower just a few months ago, the view from the top is absolutely amazing. I really hope it doesn’t go down….
Bologna was riddled with over 100 of these towers in the Middle Ages, looks similar to a contemporary city of skyscrapers.
>Monitoring of the site over the past month has revealed an “unexpected and accelerated trend” of “crushing” compression to the base of the tower, with gradual disintegration of the stone used to clad the base and cracks expanding in the brick above, it says.
Just looking at the location, and I’m thinking that would be a nightmare to get heavy equipment in there.
Italy seems to have a few leaning towers….
Is this shoddy workmanship, a consequence of design and weight on foundations or shifting and moving foundations over years leading to the leans being an inevitability?
Genuinely curious, as I had always thought of Italian architecture as having been pretty damn good. But if this was the phallic dick waving competitions of the times then it would make sense that after a thousand years, countless different families trying to one up each other in these protracted races to the skies would eventually result in a few cut corners
Well they had all that time to fix it…
I think they are full of Bologna
>the city is instigating a civil protection plan for the “sudden and unexpected collapse of the tower,”
Whoever is writing this stuff has no idea what the word “unexpected” means.
We stayed a 1 minute walk from the tower and were fortunate to climb it. It’s so beautiful, hopefully they can fix it ASAP.
Currently watching 2012 (film) while reading this. Something doesn’t feel right
Leaning Tower of Bologna?
It’s actually only on “yellow” alert and not “red”, headline is overly dramatic compared to the actual article
Tilting Tower is new name?
Why don’t they dismantle it before it crashes to the ground ?
20 comments
Well at least they’re getting some practice for this.
“Bologna’s Garisenda, the ‘leaning tower’ has stood tipsily – but steadily – for nearly 1,000 years. But following investigations last month, the city is instigating a civil protection plan for the “sudden and unexpected collapse of the tower,” which has dominated the Bologna skyline since the 12th century.
A protective metal cordon will be erected to “contain debris resulting from a possible collapse, to reduce the vulnerability of surrounding buildings and the exposure to the population, as well as blocking access to the off-limits area,” the city council said in a statement.
**TL;DR:** Climate change and its amplification of floods in Italy will speed up the collapse of this 12th Century legend.
I wouldn’t think it’d be difficult to build a framework around a tower that would hold it up while the foundations were reworked. Ground isn’t able to support it? Dig a hole 1300 feet deep and 500 feet wide, fill it with reinforced concrete with spikes 100 feet long sticking down diagonally, or whatever it takes. If you don’t want to do that, demolish the tower. Build tower 2.0 or just sell the land.
Note this isn’t the Leaning Tower of Pisa
“in Bologna”
TIL.
Damn, I climbed that tower just a few months ago, the view from the top is absolutely amazing. I really hope it doesn’t go down….
Bologna was riddled with over 100 of these towers in the Middle Ages, looks similar to a contemporary city of skyscrapers.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/towers-of-bologna
Somebody just go push these things down…
>Monitoring of the site over the past month has revealed an “unexpected and accelerated trend” of “crushing” compression to the base of the tower, with gradual disintegration of the stone used to clad the base and cracks expanding in the brick above, it says.
Just looking at the location, and I’m thinking that would be a nightmare to get heavy equipment in there.
Italy seems to have a few leaning towers….
Is this shoddy workmanship, a consequence of design and weight on foundations or shifting and moving foundations over years leading to the leans being an inevitability?
Genuinely curious, as I had always thought of Italian architecture as having been pretty damn good. But if this was the phallic dick waving competitions of the times then it would make sense that after a thousand years, countless different families trying to one up each other in these protracted races to the skies would eventually result in a few cut corners
Well they had all that time to fix it…
I think they are full of Bologna
>the city is instigating a civil protection plan for the “sudden and unexpected collapse of the tower,”
Whoever is writing this stuff has no idea what the word “unexpected” means.
We stayed a 1 minute walk from the tower and were fortunate to climb it. It’s so beautiful, hopefully they can fix it ASAP.
Currently watching 2012 (film) while reading this. Something doesn’t feel right
Leaning Tower of Bologna?
It’s actually only on “yellow” alert and not “red”, headline is overly dramatic compared to the actual article
Tilting Tower is new name?
Why don’t they dismantle it before it crashes to the ground ?
Is this the one in the Percy Jackson book?