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placing counterweights on the base of the Tower, on the North side, to move its barycenter lower and back to the North, slowing down its tendency to lean towards the South.The project went through the following phases: How did they stop the Tower from falling? The Tower tilted because the soil under the foundation wasn't strong enough to carry its weight. Given his experience in consolidation works in this soil type, he was the perfect man for the job. He started his career in 1967 with his thesis titled ' Deformation of soft clay'. The project was led by John Burland, Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Investigator at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Imperial College London.īurland led the commission of 13 experts that was appointed to fix the Tower. Those failed attempts are discussed in this article. There were two previous attempts (in 18) which resulted in increasing the inclination of the Tower. NOTE: this was not the first attempt to fix the inclination of the Tower, but it was the first successful one. The project's total cost was over 30 million EUR, and it lasted 10 years!

They did this in the frame of a project launched in 1990. The solution to this problem was then to reinforce the soil under the foundation and to make room for the Tower to compress some of the soil and straighten back up towards the North (the Tower leans to the South). During the course of 800 years, the lean constantly increased, so much to become a cause of concern by the end of the previous century.

The monument began to lean in 1178 when the construction works were barely started.

The Tower is leaning because the soil underneath the foundation is not strong enough to carry its weight (read more in this article where foundation details are discussed). In the year 1350, the lean was reported to be 1.4° and it grew over time until it reached an alarming threshold in 1993, passing the 5° marker. The Monument has been closed to the public for the entire duration of the works (over a decade: 1990 - 2001). In fact, by the end of the 80s, the Tower was slowly heading toward its catastrophic collapse. The Leaning Tower of Pisa was stabilized with a massive engineering operation that took place in the 90s, in the attempt to stop the monument from falling.

Facts about the leaning tower of pizza facts about the leaning tower of pisa