When, on March 17th 1989, the City Tower of Pavia unexpectedly collapsed, alarm for the Tower of Pisa grew accordingly. The Ministry of Public Works asked a technical-scientific committee to assess the safety of the monument. Because of the critical state of the surface of the structure, the experts advised that the Tower should be closed to the public. The Governing Council of Public Works accepted the recommendation and, on January 6th 1990, the Belfry of the Cathedral closed down.
The Committee
At the end of 1990, the Ministry of Public Works appointed a new International Committee in order to draw up a general plan and an executive plan for the reinforcement and the restoration of the Tower. It was clear then that only a global, cross-disciplinary approach could hope to solve the problems of the monument: this is proven by the fact that the eleven members of the Committee were structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, geologists, architects and restorers. In 1997, this first committee was converted, with some change in its membership, into the Comitato per la Salvaguardia della Torre di Pisa, composed of fourteen Italian and foreign members in charge of completing the project.
The Committee’s cross-disciplinary approach to such a project can be seen from the many preliminary studies it promoted before taking any decision and that concern both for the structural and geotechnical engineering as much as for the art history and architectural restoration. In planning the reinforcement works, they never lost sight of the need to respect the appearance of the Tower, its structure and the materials it is made of; they have consistently tried to find a balance between the required structural safety and the preservation of the ‘shape’ of the monument, not least its historical stratifications.
© 2004-2007 Opera della Primaziale Pisana - credits & copyright
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