Why Does the Leaning Tower of Pisa Lean?
Why Does the Leaning Tower of Pisa Lean? The tower of Pisa is the bell tower of the cathedral of Pisa in Tuscany, Italy. The tower, which is one of the most unusual in existence, is Romanesque in style and made of white marble. It is cylindrical in shape and has eight floors.
The 7 bells are located on the eighth floor. The tower weighs about 14,500 tons. It leans because, when the building was half completed, the soil under one half of the circular structure began to subside and the tower tipped.
The tower was begun in 1173, and in 1275 architects devised a plan to compensate for the tilt. Two floors, the third and the fifth, were built out of line with the others and closer to the vertical in an effort to alter the tower’s centre of gravity.
Even though the tower tips so far to one side that it looks as though it will fall, it has stood for hundreds of years. The tower has been leaning since it was first under construction.
The tilt is about 17 feet, or more than five degrees from the perpendicular. Pumping to keep water away from the surrounding ground and the injection of cement grout into the foundations and the surrounding subsoil has been tried in recent years.
In 2008 engineers stated that the Tower had stopped moving. This is the first time in its history that it has not been slowly leaning further to one side.