Bologna seals off 'leaning tower' over fears it is tilting too far | Hacker News Reader

Bologna seals off 'leaning tower' over fears it is tilting too far

theguardian.com

42 pointsperihelions15 comments

Hah, this reminds me of favorite cheeky shirt on this topic that always cracks me up. Especially with the listing description [0].

> Are you sick and tired of that one tower in Pisa (you know the one) getting all the attention just because it was built by people who didn't know what what they were doing? Is it something you think about all the time, and keeps you up at night? Have you lost friends or even jobs because of your preoccupation with this? Well you're in luck, buddy.

> The upright towers of Pisa. Quietly celebrating competence.

PS: As a heads up this t-shirt and link is SFW even though Oglaf itself in general isn't [1]. They write and draw comics with great humour but also quite explicit and pornographic at times.

[0] https://topatoco.com/collections/oglaf/products/og-upright

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglaf

What's up with leaning towers in Italy?

They've been around for almost 1000 years.

Germany and the Netherlands are close to Italy though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaning_towers

Earthquakes. For all its centuries, the famous tower of Pisa has endured them all without crumbling.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180509105004.h...

That’s what happens when towers have access to our wines /s

I guess this is what happens when you have so many old buildings everywhere. One or two will lean at some point. It’s impressive that they still stand though.

Oh please

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/series/millennium-...

According to the article, "The slant is believed to be due to ground subsidence during the 14th century", although this doesn't answer the question of why so many in Italy?

Apparently this was an architectural fad in the middle ages: rich families built "skyscrapers" to show their wealth and look out for enemies. At one point, Bologna had more than 100 of these towers [1]. Today, the small town of San Gimignano [2] is well known for these structures which do not seem to have a name in English (in German, they are called "Geschlechtertürme" and have their own Wikipedia [3] entry).

Also, I encourage everyone to visit Bologna, it's an amazing city!

[1] this is a figure you will often read, but it seems to be a bit inflated - apparently it's double counting towers from different time periods

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gimignano

[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschlechterturm

From https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschlechterturm:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Bologna_Middleage.jpg. That tower in the front a bit to the right of the center is seriously leaning, I estimate about ten degrees.

See also the "Folly", a more generic term for a "vanity structure".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly

Medieval epeens.

I heart Bologna! Going back for sure.

Because Italian cities invented "downtown density" - since Roman times, everyone wanted to live as close to the center of the urbe as possible, driving up real estate prices to the point where "statement" buildings had to be optimized for height. This is particularly true for Bononia where, at the height of its power in the 12th/13th/14th century, families competed to have the highest tower in a town that had literally dozens of them.

Year 1000 engineering vs. year 2000 climate.

They built a lot of towers, back in the day.

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