Since the structure last shifted in , it has not moved so much as an inch, creating a secure building that is unlike anything else on the planet. People are even able to climb inside of it, engaging thrill seekers and frightening pessimists all the same.
But how was the Tower able to stay still all these years? While it might be the most famous, the Leaning Tower is not the only building to tip over.
In fact, at one point, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed because another building in its proximity fell to a similar fate and collapse. This Tower endures for almost years.
The answer, as you might surmise from being on this website, has to do with the foundation the Tower was built on. The foundation was made of limestone and lime mortar. However, it was dug only 3 meters deep and built on dense clay, which was not a very stable place to build a 14,ton tower. The weight started to compact the soil until it found the weakest point and started sinking in on one side. Something very unusual happened, though: the building did not collapse.
Instead, it was resting on the limestone. The limestone was so flexible, it could hold the pressure of the Tower. What happened to the Leaning Tower of Pisa is known as foundation settling. While the foundation held for a time, it eventually settled into the position it is at today. Weather and soil will make the building sink down into a new position. Today, contractors and other foundation repair companies take this into account, which causes better built buildings with a lesser chance of shifting.
Back in , it was not as prevalent to account for settling. This is why it is so crucial to have the proper foundation in the first place. If we were wanting to building something like this today, we would make sure you would have a deep foundation.
A deep foundation anchors a building in utilizing piles that are driven deep into the ground. These anchors are usually provided via helical piles or driven piles. While both achieve their goals in separate ways, they get similar results.
This foundation would not be possible without the malleable nature of the limestone, too. Limestone foundation is often made as a giant slab. Limestone is a very plentiful resource in Texas as well.
This makes it an inexpensive commodity for homebuilders to use. Popular articles. Esther Fleming August 17, Table of Contents. Previous Article Can teachers file for unemployment during the summer in Wisconsin? Back To Top. Tommaso Pisano was the architect who finished the work. Thanks to the soft ground, it had begun to lean by the time its builders got to the third story, in Its architect and engineer tried to correct this by making the remaining stories shorter on the uphill side — but to no avail.
It kept leaning more and more. The next stories were built slightly taller on the short side of the tower in an attempt to compensate for the lean. However, the weight of the extra floors caused the edifice to sink further and lean more. In fact, also the nearby Cathedral and Baptistry are made of the same type of stone. At the time when these monuments were built, materials were not an issue. In fact, Pisa was a very powerful City with a strong Naval Fleet and it was constantly raiding the Mediterranean sea to conquer new lands and harvest resources.
The Tower was built especially to showcase the tremendous power of the little Tuscan Town. Most of the monuments at the time were built re-using the building materials harvested in foreign lands and brought to Pisa by its ships. The stones used to build the Tower came from many different locations on the Mediterranean sea, including Africa, Greece and Turkey.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was made out of recycled marble Given the abundance of this foreign material, local marbles were seldom used.
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