Leaning Tower of Pisa. Why is the Leaning Tower of Pisa tilted?

On August 9, 1173, the first stone was laid for the bell tower of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the most famous “leaning” tower in the world. It turns out that there are not so few such structures. You will learn about the ten most famous ones from our selection.

1. Suurhusen Church, Germany

Suurhusen is a late medieval building in the East Friesland region of northwestern Germany. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it was the most inclined tower in the world, although in 2010 the new Capital Gate Tower in Abu Dhabi broke this record. The Suurhusen spire remains the world's most leaning tower, its tilt beating the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa by 1.22 degrees.

2. Big Ben, London, UK

The British Parliament Clock Tower (better known as Big Ben) is leaning 0.26 degrees or 43.5cm to the northwest, according to documents that were recently made public. The level of inclination has increased to 0.9 millimeters per year since 2003, affected by constant underground work and the London Underground.

3. Two Towers of Bologna, Italy

The two towers Asinelli and Garisenda in the city of Bologna are steadily falling despite all the efforts of the city authorities. The tall tower is called Asinelli, the smaller but more deviated Garisenda, its deviation from the vertical is already 3.22 m

4. Frankenhausen Church Tower, Germany

A tower on a hillside on the outskirts of the city is constantly exposed to strong winds. Engineers noticed that the rate at which the tower is now falling is 6 cm per year. In this case, it could reach a tipping point within the next decade or so. Local and state officials agreed to spend $1.5 million to try to stabilize the tower.

5. Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Built on soft clay, the tower began to fall several years after construction began. When completed in 1350, the tower leaned about four and a half feet. By 1990, the tower had leaned another 15 feet, and authorities had spent nearly two million pounds of lead on ingots to be placed on one of its sides to prevent it from falling.

6. Nevyansk Tower, Russia

The Nevyansk Tower also falls. The tower is located in the center of Nevyansk and is one of the most famous in the Middle Urals. The construction was financed by Peter the Great and was built in the first half of the 18th century by the famous Russian builder Akinfiy Demidov. The height of the tower is 57.5 m. According to the latest measurements, the deviation of the top of the tower with a right angle is currently 2.20 m. The exact date of construction of the tower is unknown, various historical sources mention dates between 1721 and 1745.

7. Tiger Hill Pagoda

Tiger Hill Pagoda or Huqiu Tower is located in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. The tower was built during the later Five Dynasties period (907-960 AD). The tower rises at a height of 47 m. It is a seven-story building built in blue brick octagons. For more than a thousand years, the tower has gradually tilted due to the influence of natural forces. The tilt of the tower is 2.32 meters. The entire structure weighs about 7,000,000 kg.

8. Burana Tower, Italy

The Burana Tower, or the Church of St. Martino, is located on the Venetian island of Burana. The building was built in the 15th century, it does not fall because it rests on a nearby building

9. Oude Kerk, Netherlands

The Oude Kerk (Old Church), nicknamed Oude Jan ("Old John"), is a Gothic Protestant church in the old city center of Delft, the Netherlands. At 75 meters high, it is tilted 1.98 cm from the vertical.

10. Bedum Tower, Netherlands

The Bedum Tower in the northern Dutch town of Bedum also leans more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 55.86m high, the Tower of Pisa leans about 4m, while the Bedum Tower leans 2.61m (8.6 ft) at a height of 35.7m.

On August 9, 1173, the first stone was laid for the bell tower of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the most famous “leaning” tower in the world. It turns out that there are not so few such structures. You will learn about the ten most famous ones from our selection.

Suurhusen Church, Germany

Suurhusen is a late medieval building in the East Friesland region of northwestern Germany. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it was the most inclined tower in the world, although in 2010 the new Capital Gate Tower in Abu Dhabi broke this record. The Suurhusen spire remains the most tilted tower in the world, its tilt beating the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa by 1.22 degrees.

Big Ben, London, UK

The British Parliament Clock Tower (better known as Big Ben) is leaning 0.26 degrees or 43.5 cm to the northwest, according to documents that were recently made public. Slope levels have increased to 0.9 millimeters per year since 2003, with ongoing underground work and the London Underground affecting the slope.

Two towers of Bologna, Italy

The two towers Asinelli and Garisenda in the city of Bologna are steadily falling, despite all the efforts of the city authorities. The tall tower is called Asinelli, the smaller but more deviated one is Garisenda, its deviation from the vertical is already 3.22 m

Frankenhausen Church Tower, Germany

The tower on a hillside on the outskirts of the city is constantly exposed to strong winds. Engineers noticed that the speed at which the tower falls is 6 cm per year. It could reach a tipping point within the next decade. Local and state officials agreed to spend $1.5 million to try to stabilize the tower.

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Built on soft clay, the tower began to fall several years after construction began. Upon completion of construction in 1350, the tower leaned 1.5 meters. By 1990, the tower leaned 4 meters. Authorities spent nearly two million pounds of lead on bars that were placed on one side of the tower to prevent it from falling.

Nevyansk Tower, Russia

The Nevyansk Tower also falls. The tower is located in the center of Nevyansk and is one of the most famous in the Middle Urals. Construction was financed by Peter the Great. The tower was built in the first half of the 18th century by the famous Russian builder Akinfiy Demidov. The height of the tower is 57.5 m. According to recent measurements, the deviation of the top of the tower is currently 2.20 m. The exact date of construction of the tower is unknown, various historical sources mention dates between 1721 and 1745.

Tiger Hill Pagoda

Tiger Hill Pagoda or Huqiu Tower is located in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. The tower was built during the later Five Dynasties period (907-960 AD). The height of the tower is 47 m. For more than a thousand years, the tower has been gradually tilting due to the influence of natural forces. The tilt of the tower is 2.32 meters. The entire structure weighs about 7,000 tons.

Burana Tower, Italy

The Burana Tower or the Church of St. Martino is located on the Venetian island of Burana. The building was built in the 15th century. The tower does not fall only because it rests on a nearby building.

Oude Kerk Church, Netherlands

The Oude Kerk (Old Church), the nickname of the Oude Jan ("Old John") church, is a Gothic Protestant church in the old city center of Delft, the Netherlands. With a height of 75 meters, it is deviated 1.98 m from the vertical.

Bedum Tower, Netherlands

Bedum Tower in the northern Dutch city of Bedum. Its slope is more than 2.5 m with a height of 35.7 m.

If we talk about the famous bell towers of the world, the most famous is, without a doubt, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In what other city is the slope of the campanile 3° 54"? This degree is quite noticeable only at tall objects. And the bell tower seemed frozen in its fall. Undoubtedly, the city of Pisa has a lot of other attractions. It is not for nothing that UNESCO included it in its World Heritage List (at number 395) the whole Prato de Miracoli square. Its name translates as “field of miracles”. And the Baptistery of San Giovanni, and the Camposanto cemetery, and the cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin are magical creations of medieval and Renaissance architecture. But the bell tower of Santa Maria is Assunta is something special. All tourists consider it necessary to visit Prato de Miracoli to “prop” it with their finger (me, Batman, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa that I saved - photos of this type are the most common). But in this article we will figure out why the bell tower is falling, what is its height and what interesting stories are associated with it.

The city of Pisa and its attractions

The Cathedral undeservedly stands in the “shadow” of its famous leaning bell tower. You definitely need to go into it, just like the baptism of John the Baptist. But the city’s attractions are not limited to Prato de Miracoli square alone. The churches - Francis of Assisi, Santa Maria della Spina, San Paolo a Ripa d'Amo, Caterina, Frediano, Stephen, San Michele, Sant'Sixtus and others - are excellent examples. You should also visit the ancient monastery of St. Anthony. The galleries and palaces of Pisa deserve special attention: the royal Palazzo Reale, Medici, Lanfranchi, Agostini, Orologio, Carovana, Borgo Stretto. The city of Pisa boasts one of the oldest universities in Europe. The complex of educational buildings is also a historical landmark. There are many museums in the city. The most famous of them are: San Matteo, Villa di Corliano, Delle Sinope, Opera del Duomo, Medici Arsenals and Fortezza di San Gallo.

Why is the Leaning Tower of Pisa tilted: legend

There is a beautiful legend about the slow “fall” of the bell tower. They say that more than eight hundred years ago, in 1173, the master Bonanno Pisano took up the construction of the campanile. He created a wonderful marble tower, decorated it with arches and reliefs. But for some reason the local authorities refused to pay the architect the promised fee. Then the annoyed master said to his creation: “Follow me!” and moved south. And - lo and behold! - the bell tower leaned in this direction at the same hour. The frightened consuls immediately paid everything they owed under the agreement. The Campanile froze and has existed in this form for eight centuries. How much of this is true? Only the master's name. But Bonanno Pisano managed to build only the three lower floors of the high bell tower. And it was completed only two hundred years later, in 1360. It was decorated with sculptures in the fifteenth century, and with bells a century later.

A mistake that became a landmark

It's time to answer the question of why the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilted. For a long time it was believed that this was the architect's plan. But that's not true. The architect initially, even in the construction plans, made a mistake in the calculations. For the expected height of the tower, he planned a foundation that was too small (only three meters wide). And besides, he did not check the soil at the construction site. The silty and clayey soil under the southern end of the tower began to erode and sag. The error was discovered five years after the start of construction, when the third colonnade ring was close to completion (1178). The slope of the unfinished campanile was slight at that time. After all, the three-story building was only eleven meters high. The roll from the vertical axis was four centimeters. But this circumstance forced Bonanno Pisano and his assistant Guglielmo from Innsbruck to quit their work and hide in an unknown direction.

Attempts to complete the campanile

The problem was not so much the roll, but the very tendency of the deviation from the vertical axis to increase. Work was suspended, but not so much because of construction difficulties, but because of the war. In 1233 the fourth floor of the campanile was completed. After several more wars, the city consuls in the fourteenth century decided to resume construction. At that time the roll had already increased by half a meter. Giovanni di Simoni took up the matter. Instead of studying the issue and figuring out why the Leaning Tower of Pisa was tilted, he began to build the fifth floor. The structure was clearly at risk of collapse, and the master refused to continue construction. Indeed, in the Bonanno Pisano plan, the main campanile was conceived as a ten-story building with a belfry on the eleventh and a roof on the twelfth. Thus, the entire structure, in order to glorify God and the city, had to be ninety-eight meters high.

Attempts to fix the error

In 1350, the famous architect Tomaso di Andrea risked completing the work of his predecessors. At that time, the roll was already ninety-two centimeters. The architect studied the question of why the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilted, and realized that the problem is in the soil. Humans cannot change the soil, but they can influence construction plans. And he made certain adjustments to his calculations. He built the next floor of the tower eleven centimeters more on the inclined side, thereby providing some kind of counterbalance to the tilt. The master abandoned the original idea of ​​​​a too high campanile. He limited himself to eight tiers. The building was crowned not by a roof, but by bronze bells. But this refusal of four floors only delayed the inevitable fall. The degree of inclination of the campanile grew steadily every year.

Bell tower and Galileo

Don't forget that the interior is equipped with a staircase with 294 steps. And now you can climb them to admire the stunning panorama of the city. But much earlier than the tourists, Galileo Galilei climbed the tower. In the presence of two professors of natural sciences from the University of Pisa, he threw objects of varying weights from an inclined bell tower to prove the theory of gravity.

Rescue Campaign

Meanwhile, the beautiful creation continued to deviate from the vertical axis at a speed of one millimeter per year. In the twentieth century, scientists rendered a verdict: if prompt measures are not taken, the structure will collapse in forty or fifty years. Since 1994, a whole campaign has been launched to save this landmark. The height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, 56.7 meters, excluded any possibility of external support. Moreover, such a frame would inevitably spoil the appearance of this brilliant creation. Therefore, scientists took up the root cause of the “fall of the tower” - soil. In the late 1990s, lead bars were placed on the northern part of the building's plinth as a temporary measure. This counterweight slowed the fall and even reduced the roll by half a degree. But the rescuers didn't stop there. They gradually, one centimeter at a time, removed the soft clay soils from the southern side and replaced them with hard soil. As a result of these works, which only ended in 2010, the leaning of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was reduced from 5° 30" (in the 1990s) to the current 3° 54". It was announced to the general public that the architectural monument had stopped “falling.”

The beauty of the campanile

To be fair, it should be noted that there are many buildings in the world with a clearly visible slope. For example, the degree of tilt of the ancient Gothic church of Zuurhusen in East Friesland (Germany) is 1.22 degrees greater than that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And for this reason, the German temple ended up in the Guinness Book. But the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the photo of which has long become the “calling card” of the city, is also incredibly beautiful. It was conceived as a hollow cylinder of stone. two shades - snow-white and gray - makes it look like lace. Classical capitals crown the colonnade of the elongated ground floor. All subsequent six tiers are decorated with exquisite arcades and galleries. The tympanum above the entrance is crowned with a sculpture of the Madonna and Child by Andrea Guardi.

The reliability of the foundation of any building always depends on the stability of the soil. This parameter, which exceeds normal values, can lead to tilting of the structure and further destruction. Even ancient architects knew about this fact. Thanks to this property of the soil, leaning towers once appeared, having such an unusual design due to errors in their design. The most famous of these buildings is the tower located in Pisa, Italy. But the list does not end there - there are many buildings in the world that deviate from the axis of symmetry.

Such buildings are available in the UK, Italy, Germany, China, the Netherlands and Russia. Today you can learn about the history of their creation and see photographs. So let's get started.

This part of the Cathedral of St. Mary was built in the ancient Italian city of Pisa. Work on its creation began in 1173 and was completed almost two centuries later. The authorship of the most famous leaning tower in the world belongs to the architect Bonnano Pisano. It is entirely built of white marble, its height is 56 meters, the angle of inclination reaches 4.8 degrees.

Nevertheless, for many centuries this bell tower has been a symbol of Pisa. And lovers of various kinds of legends composed a new one in her honor: the architect Pisano built an elegant and completely straight tower, which captivated with its royalty and whiteness. But after the work was completed, the stingy Catholic priests did not want to pay for the master’s efforts. After this, Pisano turned to the tower and said: “Follow me!” To the amazement of eyewitnesses, the bell tower took a step and tilted.

Leaning Tower of Syuyumbike

It is the most famous building of the Kazan Kremlin. To admire the oriental beauty, a large number of tourists from all over the world come to the capital of Tatarstan every year. Its spire deviates from the vertical by 1.98 meters. Externally, it is a cone-shaped building consisting of seven tiers. Red brick was used for its construction, and the structure is crowned with a green spire, decorated with a gilded crescent - a symbol of the Muslim faith.

There are different versions of the creation of this tower. Two of them are associated with the name of the ruler of the Kazan Khanate Syuyumbike. According to the first legend, the queen ordered its construction after the death of her beloved husband Safa-Gerei.

Another story intertwines the name of the beauty and the Russian autocrat Ivan the Terrible, who in 1552, after the capture of Kazan, wished to marry the proud ruler. It took seven days to build this symbol of power and love. But the cruel king failed to win the heart of Syuyumbike - she threw herself down from the last tier of the tower and died.

Modern researchers refute these legends and say that the leaning tower was created at the beginning of the 18th century under more prosaic circumstances not related to the name of the Tatar queen. Historical documents have been preserved confirming the marriage of Syuyumbike with Khan Shah-Ali.

Capital Gate, Abu Dhabi

Almost 60 years ago, the capital of the United Arab Emirates could not boast of any attractions. But after rich oil deposits were discovered here in 1958, the country began to develop rapidly. Now Abu Dhabi is thriving and can afford the construction of the most unusual complexes.

In 2011, the leaning towers found an Arab sister: the most unusual high-rise building was commissioned in the capital of the UAE, named Capital Gate, which translated from English means “gate of the capital.” It was immediately included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most tilted building on the planet. Its roll angle is five times higher than that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and amounts to 18 degrees. This architectural miracle of our time was built in four years by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company.

The Leaning Tower in Abu Dhabi is 160 meters high and consists of 33 floors, most of which are occupied by a five-star hotel and office space. The amount spent on its construction is impressive: over 2 billion dollars.

Tiger Hill Pagoda, China

The omnipresent Celestial Empire is also included in the list of countries that have their own leaning towers. In keeping with the local flavor, the most famous leaning building is the Tiger Hill Pagoda, or Huciu. It is located in the city of Suzhou, in Jiangsu province. The history of its creation goes back over a thousand years, and it is two centuries older than the more famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. The height of the seven-story structure, weighing almost 7 thousand tons, is 47 meters.

During its existence, it survived several fires, and in 1644 Tiger Hill began to gradually acquire its special quality: for the fifth centuries, the Chinese pagoda has been rushing down, and by the beginning of the 21st century its slope exceeded 2 meters.

Italian Asinelli and Garisenta

Cities with one leaning tower invariably attract the attention of researchers and tourists. What then can we say about Bologna, where there are two of them?

Asinelli and Garisenda, or simply "twins", were built in the 12th century. The height of the first reaches almost 100 meters, and the second is half as low, but it has a stronger slope from the vertical. For the city of that time, these structures were as important as the World Trade Center towers in New York. The main purposes for which medieval skyscrapers were built were defensive and offensive.

Both main attractions of Bologna are located in the very center of the city, and almost all the main streets lead to them. Today, Asinelli is one of the best observation platforms, from the roof of which the quarters of the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region are visible at a glance.

Nevyansk Tower

In addition to the sentinel Syuyumbike, another world-famous tilted structure is located in Russia. Where is the leaning tower? A short distance from Nizhny Tagil, near the Neiva River, the city of Nevyansk modestly stands. The glorious history of the Demidov family began with him, and they also became the customers for the construction of the tilted tower. The height of the Russian sister Torre pendente di Pisa is 57.5 meters. It is noteworthy that the chimes located on the tower play about 20 melodies and have been operating without repair for almost 300 years. They were assembled by English watchmaker Richard Phelps.

The Demidovs were the richest family in Russia, and where there is big money, there are always many different myths.

Such legends also include the history of the inclination of the Nevyansk Tower. There was a persistent rumor about Ural industrialists that they were engaged in the manufacture of counterfeit coins. When auditors arrived in the city one day, the owner, allegedly covering his tracks, flooded the money production machines in the basements, which caused the building to tilt. But historians have refuted this fiction: the slope was originally conceived by the architect.

Tower in Bad Frankenhausen, Germany

The 25-meter high Gothic Upper Church, built in 1382, is located on the top of a hill and is constantly exposed to the destructive effects of a powerful air flow. According to researchers, strong winds are the main reason why the Bad Frankenhausen tower gets 6 centimeters closer to the ground every year. The mineral waters located under the foundation also contribute to the final fall. Engineers have calculated that the next ten years could cause irreparable damage to it.

January 7, 1990 famous of the year Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to tourists because it had become unsafe. Soon, large-scale, multi-year work began to stabilize this object and partially level it, which was completed only in 2010. But there are a huge number of others in the world leaning towers who are only waiting for such saving actions in relation to themselves.

The most famous leaning tower in the world. This bell tower of the local cathedral took almost two hundred years to build, from 1173 to 1360. The tilt of this structure appeared already during the construction process, and even medieval architects tried to fight it. However, only the engineers of our time managed to stop the fall. During work in the 1990s, they stabilized the tower, and in the first decade of the 21st century, they reduced the angle of inclination from 5 degrees 30 minutes to 3 degrees 54 minutes.

The Urals in the 18th century was the patrimony of the Demidov family, who built their own industrial empire in this region and were its de facto rulers. For one of the leaders of this family, Akinfiy Nikitich, a tower was built in the city of Nevyansk. This building housed the owner’s office, his laboratory, and on the upper two floors - a chiming clock. The deviation of the Nevyansk Tower from the vertical is 3 degrees 16 minutes or 1.85 meters.

In medieval Bologna, wealthy families competed among themselves to see who could build the tallest tower. In total, 180 similar objects were erected in this city during the 12th-13th centuries, of which the two neighboring ones, which belonged to the Asinelli and Garisenda families, stand out especially. The fact is that both of these towers (the large one is 97.2 meters high and the small one is 48 meters high) are inclined in relation to the ground and to each other. Moreover, according to historical and engineering research, the first began to deviate from the vertical axis for natural reasons, and the second was built this way deliberately as a mockery of the neighboring object.

Scientists cannot unambiguously decide when exactly this watchtower of the Kazan Kremlin was built - in the 17th-18th centuries or in the 16th, during the time of the Kazan Khanate. But the most famous among other towers of the Syuyumbike citadel is its deviation from the vertical, which is currently 1.98 meters.

Engineering mistakes during the construction of towers were characteristic not only of medieval European engineers, but also of their colleagues from China. As proof of this, we can cite the Tiger Hill Pagoda, built in the 10th century. Over more than a millennium, its deviation from the axis was 2.32 meters.

The Oldehove Tower in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden isn't just leaning, it's twisted. The engineers and architects who worked on this bell tower of the Church of St. Vitus, noticing the resulting tilt during its construction, tried in every possible way to stop it, shifting the center of gravity of the object. Realizing that their plan was not working, they stopped the construction of the tower, which by that time had reached a height of 40 meters. This conservation of construction happened in 1533.

The main attraction of the Malaysian city of Teluk Intan is a leaning tower 25.5 meters high. Initially it was created as a water pump and sentry. However, having deviated from the vertical axis, the tower turned into a popular tourist attraction.

The Round Towers are a national architectural treasure of Ireland. There are about 120 such sites throughout the island. But the most interesting of them is located in Kilmacdoo Monastery in County Galway. This 34.5-meter tower deviates from the vertical axis by more than a meter. It is interesting that the monastery itself has been abandoned for many centuries, and the buildings have been destroyed. And only the tower, built in the 13th century with engineering mistakes, still stands as if it were brand new.

Construction of this tower in a small Polish town began in the 13th century and ended in 1413. Judging by its architecture, it is clear that already during construction it began to deviate to the side, and therefore the builders were forced to change the shape of the tower as they continued working, bending it. This only partially helped. Now the axis of the object is shifted by 2.14 meters with its height of 34 meters.

If in the Middle Ages towers became inclined due to engineering miscalculations of their creators, in our time architects deliberately build such objects. The largest of them is the Capital Gate skyscraper, better known as the Leaning Tower of Abu Dhabi. Opened in 2011, the 160-meter building immediately entered the Guinness Book of Records as the structure with the largest inclination angle in the world. It is equal to 18 degrees.