The Church of St. Augustine, at the border of the so-called “high town” of Bergamo, is a very par... more The Church of St. Augustine, at the border of the so-called “high town” of Bergamo, is a very particular example of Gothic architecture from XIII century belonging to the monastic order of Eremites of St. Augustine. It is a single nave church, with transverse pointed arches supporting the roof and lateral chapels along the walls; the facade, in brown sandstone, shows two very high pointed windows and a little rose. The church and his monastery were so important that they were included inside the perimeter of the walls built by Venetians in the XVI century, so that of the terminal rampart in direction Southeast was built enlarging the layout of the walls to include the church and the adjacent cloisters. When in the 1797 all religious order were eliminated by the French occupancy, the monastery become barracks for French, then Austrian, and finally Italian army until 1966, when the church and the monastery were at last yield to the municipality ‘for cultural destination’. After 20 years of discussions, the larger cloister was eventually restored and adapted for the University, which hosts here the lecture rooms and the public library of the department of Human Sciences. Now, in September 2015, again with the support of the City Council, also the old church born again to a new use, becoming the Main Hall of the University of Bergamo. The example of reuse of an ancient church belonging to another religious order, the Dominicans in Maastricht, also transformed at the beginning of XIX century, is chosen in order to make a comparison between different approaches to the subject, both respecting high quality and architectural standards, although with different results.
In 2017 the traditional ‘Redentore’ feast in Venice was celebrated as usual on July 15th with a p... more In 2017 the traditional ‘Redentore’ feast in Venice was celebrated as usual on July 15th with a provisional boat bridge crossing the ‘Giudecca’ channel and a great pyrotechnic spectacle, but, for the first time, with an important innovation: the quaysides from where the spectacle could be seen where accessible only under control, until a maximum allowance (fixed by public administration) will be reached. The reasons of ‘public security’, motivated by reference to the dramatic events of St. Carlo square in Turin , hide an experiment that can lead to a stable solution for restricting, or keeping under control, the access of the tourists also to the whole historic center of Venice. The over-crowding of tourists is felt as one of the big reasons of the decay of the image of the city, and a real damage to his fragile consistency, menacing eventually the survival of the city even more than the high water tides that periodically submerge vast parts of the town. Venice can be taken as a paradigm of the difficult compatibility between the excess of tourism and the public enjoyment of cultural heritage: from one side, it seems unquestionable that the more renown excellences of the world heritage has to be left open to public access, from the other it is clear that in the age of mass tourism all these precious survivals of the past has to be carefully protected from the damages that tourism itself would produce. Moreover, these damages involve not only the physical matter of cultural heritage, but also the intangible heritage, destroying what can be regarded as the ‘spirit of the place’, often the main reason of the uniqueness of some sites. On the opposite, the ‘Camino of Santiago’ can be an example of nearly intangible heritage, made by historic paths in the country, small churches and villages that are evidences of the pilgrims of the Middle Ages: the survival of the ‘Camino’ is strictly connected to the ability of preserving intact the spirit of the places, without being overwhelmed by economic opportunities that the tourist arrival will offer.
The diagnosis of damage and the knowledge of a building’s construction history: a fruitful dialec... more The diagnosis of damage and the knowledge of a building’s construction history: a fruitful dialectic relationship. The path to understanding a historic artifact involves the contribution of many specialists working alongside the architect responsible for its restoration, well before the development of a conservation project. One of these is the surveyor, who possesses specific field instruments and IT capabilities. However, historical research is sometimes developed independently and its results are forced to fit the final project without having been discussed in a proper debate. When historical research is not self-referencing, it can benefit enormously from the direct observation of a building and the various different construction (and even destruction) phases that have occurred during its history. Nevertheless, even a mechanical interpretation of the current behaviour of a historic building can benefit immensely from research into written documents and detailed surveys of the building. A great deal of information can be gleaned from the interpretation of the cracks and damage that have appeared on the surface or that have been repaired, if these aspects are related to historical records, revealing the building’s relationship with past events (such as earthquakes) and the duration of time-dependent deterioration phenomena. This paper presents a brief survey of Massa Marittima’s clock tower, highlighting the consequences of past improvements, such as the building of the great arched bridge that connected the tower to the Cassero Senese fortress.
Il volume analizza le principali componenti e caratterizzazioni costruttive della fabbrica storic... more Il volume analizza le principali componenti e caratterizzazioni costruttive della fabbrica storica veneziana attraverso il tempo, e cerca di comprenderne il ruolo nel congegno costruttivo di insieme. Analizzando i dissesti strutturali osservati su un campione, propone correlazioni tra questi e la configurazione costruttiva tipica della cultura veneziana
The ‘Venetian Fortress’ of Bergamo is a very well-known example of integration of a strong milita... more The ‘Venetian Fortress’ of Bergamo is a very well-known example of integration of a strong military defensive apparatus in the urban landscape of a living city. The particular configuration of the town, growing over a hill and near the feet of the Alps, make this workmanship particularly impressive. From the moment of his construction in XVI century, by the wishes of the Republic of Venice, the great fortification of Bergamo was never attacked; but it created a strong separation between the ‘upper town’, closed in the fortress, and the ‘down town’, that was already developed around the roads connecting the surroundings. This situation definitely conditioned the development of the town along the centuries, but finally allowed not only the survival but also the embodying of the fortress in the town, thanks to a constant care and a peaceful reuse of the military architecture as panoramic promenade and green belt. In the framework of the continuous maintenance project set up by the City Council, funded by Fondazione Cariplo, and the UNESCO 2016 nomination ‘Opere di difesa veneziane tra il XVI ed il XVII secolo’, supported by MiBACT, a specific project was set up in order to survey and control the whole extension of the city walls: more than 5,000 m long, for a wall surface of around 70,000 m2. The automatic three-dimensional survey – with both active (laser scanning) and passive sensors (terrestrial and aerial photogrammetry with drones) – offers new opportunities for metric and material monitoring of landscape and historic buildings. The quick acquisition of spatial geometries, combined with a high metric and chromatic reliability, allows an easy planning of the survey campaigns. If scheduled on a regular and cyclical basis, they can help to build a powerful database documenting the overall situation. Since summer 2015, a first trial on the complex of the former church and convent of Sant’Agostino and the surrounding walls has been developed. Fifteen flights lasting an average of ten minutes were carried out in the closed system of the University campus and the city park of Sant’Agostino. The survey carried out simultaneously on the ramparts and on the complex, usually studied separately, gave the opportunity of unusual observations at the environmental scale. The results obtained are encouraging in terms of the richness and usability of gathered information.
The chimney object of this study belongs to an old industrial settlement in the northern boundari... more The chimney object of this study belongs to an old industrial settlement in the northern boundaries of Milan, still working nowadays despite the transformation occurred in the surrounding area. So it is also an important landmark (more than 50 m high), not only for the factory itself but also for the neighbors, despite a quite brutal intervention in the ’70 that covered the brickwork with a concrete shell. According to Property wishes, the authors have been charged to investigate the actual conditions of the chimney, that is no more used for smoke discharge, but is standing in the middle of the factory near the thermal plants and can pose relevant problems for safety, so that prevention of possible failure is mandatory. Starting from a wide “on site” analysis made by alpinist-surveyors with the support of a breakdown crane, a preliminary inspection has been possible not only of the geometry, sections and type of materials but also the state of conservation. Then, according to current Italian Building Code (DM 14.01.2008), the chimney has been studied both by means of a finite element model and by simplified methods. The intersection between practical and theoretical approach allowed to get comparable results, on the basis of a detailed comprehension of how the chimney have been built and how it works from a structural point of view. Global checks have been rather positive, regarding both to wind and seismic actions. On the basis of these results, the focus has been directed from structural checks to materials’ consistency and durability (i.e. from model to on site object) and to the actions that are needed to prevent in the future loss of materials and decay. Common solutions (repointing of mortar joints, painting outside surface to prevent bar oxidation and cracking of concrete covering) can become expensive for the difficult working conditions, moving from bottom to top both inside and outside of the chimney. Proper solution has to consider both technical and logistic issues, to set up an inspection and maintenance program that can assure safety control also in the future.
This paper deals with in situ assessment of safety and state of preservation of historic building... more This paper deals with in situ assessment of safety and state of preservation of historic buildings. This is a current issue since the need for reliability analysis of historic buildings is nowadays becoming more and more urgent. At the same time, monitoring techniques are continuously evolving. The research group CdSM of the University IUAV of Venice sets up an integrated procedure for non-destructive and microdestructive control aimed to locate possible weaknesses in the fa\ue7ades of Palazzo Ducale, in Venice. This is a delicate issue, because the building is very complex and deserves non-destructive diagnostics to be planned; moreover, a stone element has recently fallen from the south fa\ue7ade in a sudden and unexpected way. This paper illustrates the proposed methodologies for the integrated monitoring the wall structures of Palazzo Ducale, in particular those related to the assessment of the fa\ue7ades\u2019 state of preservation and to integrated experimental and analytical procedures, and illustrates the expected outcomes
In this study, some Ottoman baths in Turkey are examined where the support of timber tie beam in ... more In this study, some Ottoman baths in Turkey are examined where the support of timber tie beam in masonry construction has been detected, in places where a moderate and high seismic activity is present. The aim is to verify the contribution of these devices to the structural behavior of the buildings under seismic actions. The two case studies: Gazi Mihal Bath and Ismail Bey Bath, which are the Ottoman bath buildings, constructed in 15th century, abandoned and partially ruined were examined. The case study bath structures and the methodological approach were taken from the PhD thesis in “Politecnico di Milano”. The methodology for those study buildings was adapted to static collapse analysis of the timber tie reinforced masonry. The paper concludes with the interpretation of the behavior of the two masonry buildings according to the presence of timber tie beams.
The Church of St. Augustine, at the border of the so-called “high town” of Bergamo, is a very par... more The Church of St. Augustine, at the border of the so-called “high town” of Bergamo, is a very particular example of Gothic architecture from XIII century belonging to the monastic order of Eremites of St. Augustine. It is a single nave church, with transverse pointed arches supporting the roof and lateral chapels along the walls; the facade, in brown sandstone, shows two very high pointed windows and a little rose. The church and his monastery were so important that they were included inside the perimeter of the walls built by Venetians in the XVI century, so that of the terminal rampart in direction Southeast was built enlarging the layout of the walls to include the church and the adjacent cloisters. When in the 1797 all religious order were eliminated by the French occupancy, the monastery become barracks for French, then Austrian, and finally Italian army until 1966, when the church and the monastery were at last yield to the municipality ‘for cultural destination’. After 20 years of discussions, the larger cloister was eventually restored and adapted for the University, which hosts here the lecture rooms and the public library of the department of Human Sciences. Now, in September 2015, again with the support of the City Council, also the old church born again to a new use, becoming the Main Hall of the University of Bergamo. The example of reuse of an ancient church belonging to another religious order, the Dominicans in Maastricht, also transformed at the beginning of XIX century, is chosen in order to make a comparison between different approaches to the subject, both respecting high quality and architectural standards, although with different results.
In 2017 the traditional ‘Redentore’ feast in Venice was celebrated as usual on July 15th with a p... more In 2017 the traditional ‘Redentore’ feast in Venice was celebrated as usual on July 15th with a provisional boat bridge crossing the ‘Giudecca’ channel and a great pyrotechnic spectacle, but, for the first time, with an important innovation: the quaysides from where the spectacle could be seen where accessible only under control, until a maximum allowance (fixed by public administration) will be reached. The reasons of ‘public security’, motivated by reference to the dramatic events of St. Carlo square in Turin , hide an experiment that can lead to a stable solution for restricting, or keeping under control, the access of the tourists also to the whole historic center of Venice. The over-crowding of tourists is felt as one of the big reasons of the decay of the image of the city, and a real damage to his fragile consistency, menacing eventually the survival of the city even more than the high water tides that periodically submerge vast parts of the town. Venice can be taken as a paradigm of the difficult compatibility between the excess of tourism and the public enjoyment of cultural heritage: from one side, it seems unquestionable that the more renown excellences of the world heritage has to be left open to public access, from the other it is clear that in the age of mass tourism all these precious survivals of the past has to be carefully protected from the damages that tourism itself would produce. Moreover, these damages involve not only the physical matter of cultural heritage, but also the intangible heritage, destroying what can be regarded as the ‘spirit of the place’, often the main reason of the uniqueness of some sites. On the opposite, the ‘Camino of Santiago’ can be an example of nearly intangible heritage, made by historic paths in the country, small churches and villages that are evidences of the pilgrims of the Middle Ages: the survival of the ‘Camino’ is strictly connected to the ability of preserving intact the spirit of the places, without being overwhelmed by economic opportunities that the tourist arrival will offer.
The diagnosis of damage and the knowledge of a building’s construction history: a fruitful dialec... more The diagnosis of damage and the knowledge of a building’s construction history: a fruitful dialectic relationship. The path to understanding a historic artifact involves the contribution of many specialists working alongside the architect responsible for its restoration, well before the development of a conservation project. One of these is the surveyor, who possesses specific field instruments and IT capabilities. However, historical research is sometimes developed independently and its results are forced to fit the final project without having been discussed in a proper debate. When historical research is not self-referencing, it can benefit enormously from the direct observation of a building and the various different construction (and even destruction) phases that have occurred during its history. Nevertheless, even a mechanical interpretation of the current behaviour of a historic building can benefit immensely from research into written documents and detailed surveys of the building. A great deal of information can be gleaned from the interpretation of the cracks and damage that have appeared on the surface or that have been repaired, if these aspects are related to historical records, revealing the building’s relationship with past events (such as earthquakes) and the duration of time-dependent deterioration phenomena. This paper presents a brief survey of Massa Marittima’s clock tower, highlighting the consequences of past improvements, such as the building of the great arched bridge that connected the tower to the Cassero Senese fortress.
Il volume analizza le principali componenti e caratterizzazioni costruttive della fabbrica storic... more Il volume analizza le principali componenti e caratterizzazioni costruttive della fabbrica storica veneziana attraverso il tempo, e cerca di comprenderne il ruolo nel congegno costruttivo di insieme. Analizzando i dissesti strutturali osservati su un campione, propone correlazioni tra questi e la configurazione costruttiva tipica della cultura veneziana
The ‘Venetian Fortress’ of Bergamo is a very well-known example of integration of a strong milita... more The ‘Venetian Fortress’ of Bergamo is a very well-known example of integration of a strong military defensive apparatus in the urban landscape of a living city. The particular configuration of the town, growing over a hill and near the feet of the Alps, make this workmanship particularly impressive. From the moment of his construction in XVI century, by the wishes of the Republic of Venice, the great fortification of Bergamo was never attacked; but it created a strong separation between the ‘upper town’, closed in the fortress, and the ‘down town’, that was already developed around the roads connecting the surroundings. This situation definitely conditioned the development of the town along the centuries, but finally allowed not only the survival but also the embodying of the fortress in the town, thanks to a constant care and a peaceful reuse of the military architecture as panoramic promenade and green belt. In the framework of the continuous maintenance project set up by the City Council, funded by Fondazione Cariplo, and the UNESCO 2016 nomination ‘Opere di difesa veneziane tra il XVI ed il XVII secolo’, supported by MiBACT, a specific project was set up in order to survey and control the whole extension of the city walls: more than 5,000 m long, for a wall surface of around 70,000 m2. The automatic three-dimensional survey – with both active (laser scanning) and passive sensors (terrestrial and aerial photogrammetry with drones) – offers new opportunities for metric and material monitoring of landscape and historic buildings. The quick acquisition of spatial geometries, combined with a high metric and chromatic reliability, allows an easy planning of the survey campaigns. If scheduled on a regular and cyclical basis, they can help to build a powerful database documenting the overall situation. Since summer 2015, a first trial on the complex of the former church and convent of Sant’Agostino and the surrounding walls has been developed. Fifteen flights lasting an average of ten minutes were carried out in the closed system of the University campus and the city park of Sant’Agostino. The survey carried out simultaneously on the ramparts and on the complex, usually studied separately, gave the opportunity of unusual observations at the environmental scale. The results obtained are encouraging in terms of the richness and usability of gathered information.
The chimney object of this study belongs to an old industrial settlement in the northern boundari... more The chimney object of this study belongs to an old industrial settlement in the northern boundaries of Milan, still working nowadays despite the transformation occurred in the surrounding area. So it is also an important landmark (more than 50 m high), not only for the factory itself but also for the neighbors, despite a quite brutal intervention in the ’70 that covered the brickwork with a concrete shell. According to Property wishes, the authors have been charged to investigate the actual conditions of the chimney, that is no more used for smoke discharge, but is standing in the middle of the factory near the thermal plants and can pose relevant problems for safety, so that prevention of possible failure is mandatory. Starting from a wide “on site” analysis made by alpinist-surveyors with the support of a breakdown crane, a preliminary inspection has been possible not only of the geometry, sections and type of materials but also the state of conservation. Then, according to current Italian Building Code (DM 14.01.2008), the chimney has been studied both by means of a finite element model and by simplified methods. The intersection between practical and theoretical approach allowed to get comparable results, on the basis of a detailed comprehension of how the chimney have been built and how it works from a structural point of view. Global checks have been rather positive, regarding both to wind and seismic actions. On the basis of these results, the focus has been directed from structural checks to materials’ consistency and durability (i.e. from model to on site object) and to the actions that are needed to prevent in the future loss of materials and decay. Common solutions (repointing of mortar joints, painting outside surface to prevent bar oxidation and cracking of concrete covering) can become expensive for the difficult working conditions, moving from bottom to top both inside and outside of the chimney. Proper solution has to consider both technical and logistic issues, to set up an inspection and maintenance program that can assure safety control also in the future.
This paper deals with in situ assessment of safety and state of preservation of historic building... more This paper deals with in situ assessment of safety and state of preservation of historic buildings. This is a current issue since the need for reliability analysis of historic buildings is nowadays becoming more and more urgent. At the same time, monitoring techniques are continuously evolving. The research group CdSM of the University IUAV of Venice sets up an integrated procedure for non-destructive and microdestructive control aimed to locate possible weaknesses in the fa\ue7ades of Palazzo Ducale, in Venice. This is a delicate issue, because the building is very complex and deserves non-destructive diagnostics to be planned; moreover, a stone element has recently fallen from the south fa\ue7ade in a sudden and unexpected way. This paper illustrates the proposed methodologies for the integrated monitoring the wall structures of Palazzo Ducale, in particular those related to the assessment of the fa\ue7ades\u2019 state of preservation and to integrated experimental and analytical procedures, and illustrates the expected outcomes
In this study, some Ottoman baths in Turkey are examined where the support of timber tie beam in ... more In this study, some Ottoman baths in Turkey are examined where the support of timber tie beam in masonry construction has been detected, in places where a moderate and high seismic activity is present. The aim is to verify the contribution of these devices to the structural behavior of the buildings under seismic actions. The two case studies: Gazi Mihal Bath and Ismail Bey Bath, which are the Ottoman bath buildings, constructed in 15th century, abandoned and partially ruined were examined. The case study bath structures and the methodological approach were taken from the PhD thesis in “Politecnico di Milano”. The methodology for those study buildings was adapted to static collapse analysis of the timber tie reinforced masonry. The paper concludes with the interpretation of the behavior of the two masonry buildings according to the presence of timber tie beams.
Uploads
Papers by Giulio Mirabella Roberti