Structural Restoration of the Bell Tower of the Reno Centese church in Ferrara

After years of waiting for the Bell tower of the Reno Centese Church in Ferrara the time has come for a structural restoration following the earthquakes of May 2012 which seriously damaged it causing a rotation and a displacement of the part of the shaft that is above altitude 8m from the ground, up to the top.

The earthquake arrived during the restoration of the facades, for this reason, for 9 years the image we have been passing near the bell tower is that of an abandoned construction site.

The design process was particularly complicated but thanks to the experience gained by Eng. Marcello Giovagnoni, designer of the intervention, on other restricted works moved with hydraulic systems, the joint commission between technicians of the Region and officials of the Superintendency has finally approved the project that has been put up for tender and is in its preliminary stages of implementation.

The project includes a reinforced concrete base, of the supporting columns of the “loading surface” and 4 large beams which, forming a double stretcher, will support the upper part of the stem when a saw with diamond wire will perform the cut and separate the base from the stem, which will remain suspended and stabilized with an external tie rod system.

At this point, with great slowness and through the control of hydraulic equipment controlled by electrical control units, the bell tower will be rotated and moved to resume its original position.

At the end of the stroke it will be stabilized, so as to allow the reconstruction of the heavily damaged portion of the base and proceed through a new, very delicate phase, to reposition the shaft on the base, to be then reinforced with innovative techniques and reborn to new life.

The intervention, carried out with the modern techniques described, is unique in its kind and recalls interventions of the past in which a couple of bell towers in the Bolognese area were moved by making them roll on wooden elements.

The project team has already adopted similar translation techniques for the displacement of about 3 m of the Polettiani walls of the Galli Theater in Rimini.