The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the world’s most famous construction mistake
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The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the world’s most famous construction mistake. The architect, Bonanno Pisano,
found his bell tower starting to lean almost immediately after he began to build it. And the lean kept increasing through the centuries, a tourist bonanza for Pisa, that would end if the tower leaned too far and fell.
This picture was taken in 1994, prior to a major engineering effort to stabilize the tower and reduce the lean by 10%. The tower was also closed to visitors. I had climbed it back in 1986, great fun, but disorienting.
Why the lean?
The tower is built on unsuitable ground for such a heavy and tall building. It is only about 6 feet above sea level and built on a riverbed. The underlying ground is made up of layers of sand and clay. The layers are not even and the weight of the building has compressed them. Because the layers are not even, as the ground has compressed, it has sunk more in some places than others.
The Eiffel Tower, an immense stucture of exposed latticework supports made
of iron, was erected for the Paris Exposition of 1889. The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII of England) officiated at the ceremonial opening. Of the 700 proposals submitted in a design competition, one was unanimously chosen, a radical creation from the French structural engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (b. Dec. 15, 1832, d. Dec. 28, 1923), who was assisted in the design by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, and architect Stephen Sauvestre.
