The recent earthquakes in L’Aquila have caused much destruction and death. Much of which was caused by buildings that were not constructed to withstand even mild earthquakes. While I am not in Italy, and I do not know the specific details of collapse and causes, I do know that there were many beautiful historic buildings in the area that were damaged or destroyed because of the quakes. This is an attempt at providing a list of notable monuments in the area and documenting the before and after of these structures. I love to Google search everything so when the title popped into my head I had to Google it. If you are interested, there is a book written by Kurt W. Forster titled “The Morality of Architecture”. In it he seeks to understand why it is that we save some buildings and others are easily discarded. Intentional versus unintentional monuments. It will be interesting to see what survives, what is resurrected and renewed, and what is torn down never to be seen again. This is not the first time the town has experienced serious earthquakes. There were many previous earthquakes in 1315, 1349, 1452, 1501, 1646, 1703, 1706 and now in 2009. Outside of L’Aquila the Baths of Caracalla in Rome were also damaged.
To see a great photo pool from Flickr that contain photos collected of L’Aquila before the earthquake click here.
The Duomo- San Massimo Cathedral (Before)
The Duomo (After)
Pulled from video during live feed of RAI news coverage of the earthquake. The Church of Santa Maria del Suffragio by Giuseppe Valadier, otherwise known as Purgatory Church or Saint Souls Church or to the locals “The Duomo”
Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio (Before)
Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio (After)
Aerial view of the collapsed transept. New York Times Image
Basilica San Bernardino
Reports state the the steeple fell in and dome cracked. No other reports or photos yet of additional damage.
Porta Napoli
The New York Times reports that the Porta Napoli, built in 1548 in honor of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, has been completely destroyed. There were no photos that I could find either before or after.
SO- Why was it so bad?
The simple answer was that the buildings were not designed to withstand an earthquake. Many were made of Unreinforced Masonry which is basically blocks and bricks stacked on each other with just some mortar holding them together. For an in-depth analysis check out the Physics Today blog.
Other Sources for Information
The Telegraph- Has a great before and after photo gallery
There are abundant images of Porta Napoli on the web!
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That is BEFORE the quake! I have not seen any of the
after images.
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