Historical structural reinforcements applied to Spanish medieval buildings

P. Valcarcel," F. Escrig"

a Department of Technology of Construction E. T.S. Architecture La Coruiia, Spain

b Department of Structures E. T.S. Architecture Seville, Spain

ABSTRACT

The problems of structural damages are common in all times and the medieval ones are not the exception. Many ancient monuments had presented problems of pathology solved with many sort of structural reinforcements. These reinforcements has been made with the technologies of the own historical period and with the available materials. In this paper will be exposed some of the traditional systems based in masonry reinforcements.

INTRODUCTION

Ever since architecture exists has structural pathology existed. Any building which is to be constructed is subject to structural problems, whichever typology is employed. However, certain typologies present specific problems in themselves, either due to the nature of the material itself or the particular characteristics of the structural system used. In this manner reinforced concrete or steel are intrinsically vulnerable to rust or corrosion, due to their properties, independent of the structural system employed. Masonry structures are subject to failure problems, regardless of the type of stone or brick used.

All through history, when structural problems have appeared in a building, the natural solution has been reinforcement. It is rare that a building be reconstructed totally, however grave its ruinous state. Famous buildings such as the Hagia Sophia Basilica have suffered a process of partial ruin (in fact the dome has fallen twice) and the response has always been the same: The building has been propped up, reinforced, it has undergone significant modifications, but has not been reconstructed. What history demonstrates is that when a building has been demolished in order to construct another, this has generally been for practical or aesthetic reasons. The cathedral of Santiago is in actual fact the third, since the first two weresuccessivelytumeddown in

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order for it to be expanded. In like manner, the old mosque of Sevilla, demolished after the christian conquest, in order to construct in this place the present cathedral, or the romanic church of Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos), turned down tobuilt the current neoclassic church. Fortunately there was not enough money to change the famous cloister.

In each historical period the reinforcement of a possible pathology was carried out according to the knowledge existing of the causes of said pathology, with the available ~ical knowledge regarding the functioning of the reinforcement and with available ( building technologies, And then, as now, each case was nearly always unique and the experience Of the architect planning the reinforcement in similar cases was

insignificant or nonexistent. This means that solutions proposed are extremely variable although within very fixed schemes.

In this paper we will study the problems of reinforcement which are presented in the northern area of Spain, corresponding to the area of influence of the St. James Way. The buildings studied are nearly all romanic, with a few preromanic or cistercian examples. All of them have undergone numerous damages and have been reinforced in later periods. Dating these reinforcements is almost always inaccurate, but can be estimated according to the architectural style used. We have limited ourselves to those reinforcements carried out before the 19th century, considering the Baroque as the limit. Such reinforcements have been undertaken In all cases with masonry, the main technique available at the time. There is evidence that some of the historic reinforcements were built using metallic elements, such iron clamps or chains, like in the Vatican Dome, but these will not be considered in our study.

The vast majority of Spanish Romanic buildings have been carried out by erecting two ashlar masonry walls and filling the cavity with rubble masonry, a common technique in several countries, also used in the building of pillars. On top of this, heavy vaults or domes were placed, also using a layer of ashlar masonry and filling the empty spaces with rubble masonry. Only in Catalonia and Levante (the east coast) were amphoras used in order to lighten the filling, The strength of the thrust and the low resistance of the walls, in spite of their outward appearance, have caused quite a number of problems in Spanish Romanic buildings. Settling down problems, when the soil was not suitable, was also the reason for many of structural pathologies that we have been able to observe.

The solutions that have been undertaken traditionally are, basically, the following: Counterforts, shoring, reinforcement arches and props. Specific examples of these shall be studied now.

COUNTERFORTS.

Counterforts represent possibly the most widely used structural system, for the majority of problems found in medieval buildings were due to the thrust of vaults and domes. On the other hand, some architectural elements that characterized Romanic style, such as buttresses, or Gothic style, such as flying buttresses, could be considered from a structural point of view as initial counterforts. A good example of such a reinforcement can be the Mozarabic church of San Pedro de Tarrasa (fig. 1).

Structural Repair and Maintenance of Historical Buildings 533

Inanuncertaindata were built three enormous counterforts to stabilize its apse. In this case, the counterforts are more evidence of fear than proof of recognition of the true structural problem. The church has recently been restored, bringing the counterforts down to reasonable limits (fig 2).

Figurel

Figure 2

However, this system probably reaches its extreme in the Romanic church of Santa Marfa del Sar, on the shore of the Sar river in Santiago de Compostela. It was built shortly after the Cathedral of Santiago, thus benefiting from the superior craftsmanship of the masters and workmen who built the latter and who very likely contributed to the

Figure 3 construction of the former.

Nevertheless, they made two obvious conceptual mistakes:

The great elevation of the side bays, which left the central bay with virtually no offset and the actual setting down of the church, on rather c1aylike, soft soil on the river bank, by all means unsuitable terrain. Both mistakes added together caused the thrust of the vault to separate the pillars, leading to the collapse of the dome in XVIth century. It was rebuilt with no real. improvements in technical knowledge but with a firm intention to not repeat past errors. As shown in the pictures, the counterforts built

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in XVIllth Century were the result. Needless to say, the vault remains today (fig 3,4,5).

Figure 4

Figure 6

FigureS

Generally, we have been able to confirm that problems in soils have met with rather unfortunate solutions. An interesting example of this can be found in the church of cistercian monastery of Santa Maria de Sacramenia in Segovia. Since nearly all medieval monasteries were built close to a source water, for obvious practical reasons, serious problems often

cropped up, either with the settling down of the Figure 7

building, as the case of Valdedi6s (Asturias) (fig 6)

or with the appearance of dampness, as i,J;l Santa Marfa de Huerta (Soria). But the case of Sacramenia is unusual. The problem. came from the existence of an underground spring running under the transept of the church, still visible today, As aconsequence a rotation of the great vaults of church was evident thus causing a natural alarm. A first counterfort in the corner was then built which understandably did Dot solve the

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problem. Many others were successively added only to form the astonishing whole we can observe in fig. 7

The lise of counterforts is also widely found in different Romanic cloisters when a new level had been built, generally in gothic period. A notorious example of this is the cloister of San Esteban de Ribas de Sil (Orense). In other cases the counterforts initially planned led up being insufficient and it is necessary to increase them. Such is the case of Santa Marfa del Campo (La Corona). It is a that has shown a long list of problems through its history for two reasons: The uneveness of the ground and the high elevation of the lateral bays, which left the central barrel vault with an inadequate offset, as in the church of Sar. In the XIVth Century the buttresses of the south side were increased, which did not solve the problem, that need a recent reinforcement building shorings in lateral bays.

As we have seen, the use of counterforts is quite common, in some cases even shorting original elements of the building. The examples showed are unusual only for their great size.

BRACE ARCHES.

Unlike counterforts, brace arches are quite rare. We shall mention only two cases which are made interesting by the mistaken conception they gave to the problems involved.

Figure 8

The first is' the Palace of Gelmirez in Santiago. This bishop greatly promoted the building of the Cathedral and his Palace is attached to it. The building ends with an arch that allows access to the north gate of the Cathedral and which is clearly unbalanced and lies evidently sagged. :FI?' solve the problem a cambered arch was built (Jig 8) This arch solves the buckling of the side wall, but fall short of reding the real problem, Curiously enough, the reinforcement did actually work; although for reasons other than those intended. Although we lack precise data, the process was likely to be the following. Originally the arch might have been kept in balance by the attached building. In the XVIth Century this building was probably demolished and the problem began to appear. A shoring was built as well as the present building, the latter actually supporting the deformed arch, keeping it stable to the present day.

536 Structural Repair and Maintenance of Historical Buildings

Figure 9

REINFORCEMENTS ARCHES.

Figure 10

PROPPING.

Another kind of shorings are the corresponding to crossing of Cathedral of Tuy (pontevedra). A similar system can be observed in the church of San Vicente de la Barquera (Cantabria) or San Pedro de la Rua (Navarra) (fig 9). The obvious intention are contain the thrust of central bay, but the system has introduced greater thrusts on lateral bays, that in the case of Tuy was

produced great damages.

In some cases the construction of vaults with excessive span has resulted in pathological problems. In these solutions a common solution was to construct intermediate arches which aided in easing up the load on the main arches. An outstanding example of this technique is the vault of apse in the Beauvais cathedral in France. In the area we have studied this reinforcement is rare. A curious type of this system are the arches built in the apse of San Esteban de Ribas de Miiio (l.ngo). The dating is very imprecise and they would seem to have been constructed with the intention of propping up the apse, This solution may even twin out: to be more dangerous than then initial problem, since an excessive thrust of soil could seriously damage the church itself (fig. 10).

We understand these to be supplementary pillars which are arranged to support an element which threatens to go into ruin. These are frequent elements in popular architecture in our area of study, but are less so in monumental architecture. In this paper we shall mention only two of these, one for its unusual character, and other for its artistic significance.

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Figure 11

Figure 12

The first example is placed among the arches of the monastery of La Oliva in Navarra. Their function is clear, but is surprising because seems an exaggerate solution (fig 11). The second one is the pillar which supports the lintel of the central span of the "Portico de la Gloria" in Santiago de Compostela. In this case certain doubts may even occur to one to whither this pillar of extraordinary beauty, is or is not as prop.

At first sight the portico does not differ in a formal sense from others, such as those in Vezelay (fig 12), Autun, Bourges, ets. closely lied to the St. James Way. However, when observed form the back one can see that the gigantic stone lintel has a peraltic shape and is not straight as in the above mentioned cases. On the

Figure 13 contrary, lintels of this type correspond to entrances with a single span such as that of S.

Isidoro de Loon or Santiago de Barbadelo (Lugo). A curious example even exists, the portico of Sainte Foy de Conques, in which two similar lintels appear on either side of central ashlar wall. On the other hand the lintel of Santiago present a notorious shearing fissure (fig 13) most probably produced upon taking on load as a simple span. There is a similar example in the straight lintel of Autun in France, which

t

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correspond ta a break trougb shearing force of a lintel held up by a central support. In Autun the fissure breaks the reliefs of portico, but not in Santiago (fig 14). Besides Connant himself in this study of the cathedral of Santiago, names the intention of Master Mateo, the author of the Portico de la Gloria, to cover the central span with a single opening in the facade, Keep in mind that until the XVIth century the Cathedral of Santiago remained doorless at this portico in order to take in pilgrims.

Figure 14

CONCLUSIONS.

We believe that the most likely hypothesis is that central span was constructed initially without an intermediate support as an attempt to make a very notorious work. The breakage in the lintel forced such a pillar to be set in place which later upon adding the statues of the portico, master Mateo integrated within the whole of the work, with unquestionable talent.

From the above discussion, it is clear that an enormous variety of structural reinforcements have been carried out on medieval monuments. Thispresents aserious problem for the restorer: How far can these reinforcements be considered an integral part of the work or simply additions which may be removed in order to replace by others which distort less the original image of the building?

As always, there is no single response to this. We have already seem how an adequate restoration has done away with a large section of excessive reinforcement in San Pedro de Tarrasa. On the other hand the church of Santa Marfa del Sar seem much less singular without its enormous counterforts. The reinforcement of Sacramenia can be substituted by other systems more efficient, but it is safe enough, whereas the arches of Ribas de Millo are even dangerous. Lastly the ?hypotethical elimination of the central pillar of the Portico de la Gloria would be an artistic crime lacking all justification.

There are no conclusions. Basically, as in nearly everything. approaching these reinforcements. must be done with respect. In many cases they can be limited or substituted with no historical or artistic damage to the monument. In other cases can be a mistake, but may contribute to defining the character of a building, not a perfect being, but as a living thing.