3087
General Report du TC 301
Monuments, historic sites and case histories
Rapport général du TC 301
Monuments, sites historiques et études de cas
Flora A.
DICEA, University of Napoli Federico II, Italy
ABSTRACT : This general report presents and discusses papers dealing with the preservation of monuments and historic sites, as well
as with some case studies related to problematic soils and to the design challenges they pose. The papers deal with a variety of issues
and sometimes report different design approaches. They show that the themes discussed in this session are among the most
challenging the geotechnical engineers and researchers have to face. In some cases, solutions have to be found taking into account the
essential contributions of experts from different cultural fields.
RÉSUMÉ : Ce rapport général passe en revue une série d’articles portant sur la conservation des monuments et des sites historiques,
ainsi que sur quelques études de cas concernant les sols difficiles et les défis qu’ils posent à l’ingénieur géotechnicien. La grande
variété de problématiques traitées dans ces articles montre bien que les thèmes abordés dans cette session figurent parmi les plus
complexes que les chercheurs en géomécanique et les ingénieurs géotechniciens soient appelés à résoudre. Souvent des solutions ne
peuvent être trouvées qu’à travers les efforts combinés d’experts issus de différentes cultures disciplinaires.
KEYWORDS: Monuments, historic sites, preservation, problematic soils, case studies, seismic protection.
1 INTRODUCTION
This session combines two themes:
Preservation of Monuments
and Historic Sites
and
Case Studies
. While the five papers that
belong to the previous theme are homogenous, the nine papers
belonging to the Case Studies theme can be conveniently
subdivided in two categories: soil characterization (3 papers),
and geotechnical design (6 papers).
Table 1 reports the list of the 14 papers belonging to the
session. In the report, the papers will be presented and discussed
following these categories, in the order adopted in Table 1.
Citations of papers belonging to this session will be mentioned
in Italics in the text.
2 PRESERVATION OF MONUMENTS AND HISTORIC
SITES
2.1
General considerations
This topic has always been of interest to geotechnical engineers
and, after the X ICSSMFE in Stockholm (1981) in which for the
first time a full session was devoted to it, a technical committee
was appointed (at that time TC19, now TC301) to work
specifically on the preservation of monuments and historic sites.
Since then, it has become an increasingly important topic in our
community, along with the increasing awareness of the
importance of heritage in our life.
Two specific conferences have been dedicated to the theme
by the technical committee (Napoli, 1997 and 2013), and a
theme lecture dedicated to Jean Kerisel has been established
starting from this International Conference.
Furthermore, TC301 has produced a volume (Geotechnics
and Heritage 2013) collecting a number of relevant case
histories on the role of Geotechnical Engineering in the
preservation of monuments and historic sites. The volume can
be considered as the outcome of many years of activity of TC
301 (previously TC19): in fact, because of the complexity of the
topic, it is difficult to imagine mandatory guidelines or
recommendations summarizing what should be done and
prescribing activities to carry on, intervention techniques,
design methods. Therefore, the technical committee concluded
that it is probably more effective to offer, as the volume does, a
collection of well described examples of preservation activities
which may inspire the geotechnical engineer dealing with
monuments and historic sites, suggesting an approach rather
than a solution.
Dealing with valuable sites and buildings poses a number of
peculiar problems, and it has been recognised for a long time
that their preservation is an interdisciplinary activity. The
general principles of restoration and maintenance, and the
constraints to interventions, have been stated in time from the
Athens Charter (1933) first and Venice Charter (1964)
subsequently. The principles contained in these fundamental
reference documents apply not only to the superstructure but to
the whole Ground-Monument System (Jappelli 1991), and their
relevance for geotechnical engineering has been recalled many
times (
e.g.
Jappelli 1997, Viggiani 1997, Aversa 2005).
The Nara Document (1994) and, more recently, the Krakow
Charter (2000) have added complementary information and
principles to these documents, recognising that the concept of
preservation and even the definition of authenticity and heritage
are somewhat elusive, and must be referred to considering the
different cultural contexts existing around the world and not
only in Europe, where the culture of preservation originally
started.
Some of the papers belonging to this session deal directly or
indirectly with authenticity, and different interpretations of its
meaning are shown. An enlightening example of the elusiveness
of the concept can be taken with reference to the conservation
of some structures in Japan: up to the mid of the 19
th
century,
several wooden Shinto shrines periodically underwent complete
reconstruction ever since the inception of this custom in the 7
th
century. Such a practice had the character of an important
religious ritual, but was probably answering to the need of
