-
Reconstruction of the Kalwaryjski church
tower without disassembling the 17.0 m high
timber spire
J. Kubica, Z. Paĵ k, W. Starosolski, J. GlqbikDepartment of
Building Structures, Silesian University of Technology,PL-44-100
Gliwice, ul Akademicka 5, PolandEMail: jkub@katkon. bud.polsl
gliwice.pl
Abstract
The paper deals the problems connected with restoration of one
of the mostfamous and important pilgrim churches in Poland. The
masonry tower of the 100year old Kalwaryjski Church in Piekary Sl̂
skie (Upper Silesia) has failed, withthe indoor and outdoor damages
and destructions as a result of influences ofaggressive mediums.
The most dangerous damages were observed in the upperpart of the
tower. This part was practically completely devastated. The method
ofrestoration of this tower is shown. The most affected upper part
(ca. 8.0 m high)of the clay brick masonry tower walls was replaced
with the new structurewithout the necessity of disassembling the
17.0 m high timber spire on top of thetower. In order to enable the
replacement of the upper part of the tower, a steelframe
construction was applied. An additional aspect of the methods
ofrestoration used was permitting the reconstruction of the primary
form of theupper part of tower and allowing the use of the tower
bells.
1 Introduction
Old historical, monumental buildings, also made of clay brick
masonry, duringthe long term of exploitation, as a result of
influences of many different factors,like humidity, temperature and
chemical aggression, were subjected to graduallyaccrued damages.
These damages, if they were not suitably repaired, becamelarger and
more dangerous. Finally, they could lead to a limiting state in
someparts of the load bearing structure, or even whole buildings.
Sometimes, as an
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
688 Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings
effect of situation like that, the catastrophe of building is
observed. In paper anexample of strongly damaged, practically in
failure state, construction of claybrick masonry bell tower of 100
years old Kalwaryjski Church in Upper Silesiawas presented. The
damages with analysis of reasons of their appearance andapplied
method of restoration, were described.
2 Construction of the tower
The Kalwaryjski Church building, which overall view in Fig.l has
shown waserected between 1862 and 1896 on the top of the Cerekwica
Hill in PiekarySlaskie (in north-west part of Upper Silesia
Industrial Region) according toproject of architect Wladystaw
Schneider
Figure 1: General view of front facade of the Kalwaryjski
Churchin Piekary Sl̂ skie.
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings 689
The whole church was built by city-dwellers of Piekary Sl#ie.
The total high ofthe clay brick masonry bell tower (see Fig.2) is
about 50,0 m.
A-A
B-B
C-C
Figure 2: Shape and overall dimensions of bell tower and
theirhorizontal projections on three main levels.
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
690 Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings
In their lower part, the tower has a tetragonal section with 5,9
m length sides andis connected with masonry walls of central nave
of building and aisles.Thickness of walls in lower part of the
tower is 1,35 m. There are 8 pilasters inthe corners of the tower.
In each corner are 2 pilasters (see section C-C in Fig.2).The width
of pilaster is 0,65 m, but their high is not a constant value.
It'schanging on 4 levels, from 1,2 m in lower part up to 0,8 m in
the upper part ofthe tower. From level +25,80 m up to +32,40 m the
horizontal section of towerhas 8 sides. Each of them according to
principal design solution had an openingbut very earlier 4 of these
openings were closed using 0,38 m thick masonry.Probably, with 8
openings the stiffness of this upper part of tower was too low.In
some places of the internal side of the tower columns between
windowopenings, old cracks under plaster were observed. That is
providing that safety ofconstruction of the tower was menaced.The
tower is closed by 17,0 m high timber spire. Whole spire is covered
withzinc coated sheets. There are 4 floors inside the tower. These
floors are situatedat following levels: +11,40 m, +15,90 m (bell
floor), +20,83 m (clock floor) and+24,58 m (part of tower with
openings). Construction of each of these floors wassimilar:
reinforced concrete plate supported on steel beams with anchorage
inmasonry load bearing walls of the tower.
3 Description and analysis of observed damages
During a long period of exploitation many different types of
damages, like:
• large damp areas of external masonry walls, including
pilasters andbuttresses. The traces of dampness', changes of the
colour of the bricks andmortars and salt efflorescence were
observed on internal and externalsurfaces of walls;
# irregular cracks visible in external brickwork and some large
cracks acrossthe whole thickness of the wall, especially along the
contact line of wallswith pilasters and buttresses;
* spalling of bricks and mortars in surfaces of facades
conducted to falling outbricks of walls;
• lixiviations, sulphate attack and cracks of a lot of
decorative elements madeof concrete;
was experienced.
All types of damages, given above, were observed on whole facade
of thechurch. The most intensive damages were appeared in upper
part of the tower.Most of masonry pilasters, especially on west
side of the tower was verticallycracked with slack bricks at any
moment could be falling down. Safety of thispart of the building
was menaced. Immediately there were temporary protected(Fig.3)
using timber boards and steel bars. Additionally, these parts of
tower
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings 691
were covered with plastics net. For fear of further damages, the
tower bells wereimmobilised.
Figure 3: View of temporary protected, strongly damaged
pillarsin upper part of the tower.
Vertical cracks and other types of damages could be the result
of the influence ofmany different factors [1,2]. The main reason of
observed damages of the tower
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
692 Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings
construction, was the influence of chemical aggressive medium of
atmosphere inUpper Silesia and frost bursting. The additional
factors accelerating processes ofdestruction of building analysed,
were:
• air pollution of chemical aggressive industrial gases and
dusts. Upper Silesiais the most intensive industrial region in
Poland. From many hundreds yearsa lot of heavy industry factories
produced many toxic and aggressivecompounds, like acid rains;
• location of church on the top of the hill;
• complicated and very "reach" architecture form of body of the
building;
• using for brickwork's a low quality clay bricks and lime
mortar of lowmechanics parameters;
• wrong earlier repair works. In the past, for the repair works
of the damagedbrickwork's of the external facades, the completely
inadequate mortars (verystrong cement mortars) were used. Moreover,
whole surface of the fagadewas emulsion painted;
• destructive action of corroded steel elements built-in the
brickwork;
• wrong construction of water draining elements, especially in
lower part ofthe timber spire,
4 Method of restoration
A very bad technical state of the brickwork connected with
quickly occurrenceof damages, especially during last a few years,
required to start immediately withcomplex renovation of tower and
in consequence, whole building. The mostdifficult problem, both in
respect of construction solution and adequatetechnology, was the
method of restoration of strongly damaged, upper part of themasonry
bell tower. There are no so much indicates in that's matter in
Polishprofessional literature (e.g. in [3]). The primary
calculations and analysis madeby building experts were indicated to
necessity of disassembling (up to +26,0 mlevel) of the 17,0 m high
construction of timber spire, crowned the tower. Thissolution has
two main negative aspects:
* needs using of a heavy crane with capacity not less than 40
tons andlong crane lib;
• cost of disassembling of the old spire and making of a new one
is toohigh and not possibly to acceptance for owner of the
church.
Therefore, authors were proposed the restoration of masonry
walls of upper partof the tower without necessity of timber spire
disassembling. Elements ofconstruction of this spire were generally
in good condition, except zones ofsupporting in the lower part.
Only the ends of the main timber beams, insidemasonry walls, were
intensive damaged and required the repair works.
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings 693
In presented method, the execution of spatial steel frame
construction inside thetower, was proposed. It was made an
assumption, that steel structure will be bothmontage supporting of
the timber spire and stiffening of pillars betweenopenings in
further exploitation of the building. The acceptance of
presentedmethod, permitted to open all 8 openings, like in primary
design solution.The idea of proposed solution of strengthening of
upper part of masonry wallsand scheme of steel frame construction,
has shown in Fig.4. There was nomarked all truss bracings of the
steel frames on this Figure. In reality, they werein all surfaces
of the space frame.
a) b)
+ 149.40
Figure 4: Scheme of proposed solution (a) and scheme of
steelframe construction (b).
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
694 Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings
Construction of space frame (designated on Fig.4 as "1") was
adapted togeometrical conditions of interior of the tower. The
spaces of all 8 openings werenot screening off. Conditions of
realisation of presented steel strengtheningstructures were
required limits in relation to the maximal length and weight
ofsteel elements. All these elements were no longer than 3,0 m and
not exceedweight about 2 kN. The bold joints were used. Steel
frame, made as the spacecolumn (2,12 m width and about 7,0 m high)
was composed with two verticalplane trusses connected to each other
by horizontal and diagonal steel rollingprofiles. Special steel
strut constructions were welded on the top of the upperhorizontal
beams of the structure. The task of these constructions was to
transferthe ftical loads from spire to the masonry walls of the
tower after theirrenovation. On first and second level of the steel
space frame the flexible wireelements of anchorage of new
brickwork's were used. The base of the spaceframe was anchored in
reinforced concrete plates (designated on Fig.4 as "2")made on the
top of the existing floor on +24,85 m level. Whole
constructionswere additionally anchored in the floor of the lower
level with vertical steelwires (elements "3" on Fig.4). After
mounting steel space frame was started totake to the pieces the
damaged part of the tower. Fig.5 shows the detail of thesupporting
of lower part of timber spire on the steel structure, but Fig.6
shows ageneral view of the upper part of the tower during
exchanging of the brickwork.
Figure 5: Detail of the supporting of lower part of the timber
spireon the steel structure.
During restoration works the completely damaged timber elements
of lower partof the spire were also changed. Additionally the
anchorages in masonry walls ofthese elements were strengthened with
steel clamping rings. All timber elementswere cleaned and
protected. To the repair works were used clinker bricks and
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings 695
plastic cement mortar. The characteristic compressive strength
of mortar (tested)was about 14,0 N/nnn̂ . Now most of the repair
works, especially restoration ofthe church tower, was finished.
Figure 6: View of upper part of the tower during brickwork
exchanging.
Besides the reconstruction of the most damaged part of tower
also repairing ofthe other part of the tower and a main building
body was recommended. Themost important of these works were:
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509
-
696 Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical
Buildings
• strengthening of the connections of pillars and buttresses
with externalmasonry walls. The basic solution, well known from
professional literature(e.g. from [4]), was to remove and replace
shaded cracked blocks with newand fill the cracks an appropriate
(commonly 1:1:6) mortar mix, wellrammed in, and repoint the
surface. When the cracks were large,additionally the expansion
bolts of modified mortar fixings were used;
• renovation and restoration of whole facade surface and
externalarchitectonic details of tower. First the fagade surface
was cleaned and thanthe gaps was filled with suitable mortar
mix.
5 Summary
Presented method of restoration was permitted to replace the 8,0
m high upperpart of tower without necessity of disassembling of the
17,0 m high, timber spirecrowned the top of the tower. Choice of
this method was connected with somepositive aspects, like:
• short period of restoration works;
• lack of necessity of using a heavy crane and other
equipment's;
• additionally strengthening and stiffening of the whole upper
part of thetower;
• approach like presented distinctly reduced the total cost of
wholerestoration.
Moreover as an additional aspect of used method of restoration
was permitting toreconstruction the primary design form of upper
part of tower (window openinginto each wall) and admitting to use
the tower bells. The authors were thinkingthat presented method
could be also successfully use in other similar cases.
References
1. Mitzel, A., Stachurski, W. & Suwalski, Damages of RC and
MasonryStructures (in Polish). ARKADY Publishing, 2̂ Edition,
Warsaw,1982.
2. Freeman, T.J., Littlejohn, G.S. & Driscoll R.M.C., Has
your house gotCracks? A guide to subsidence and heave on buildings
on clay.Thomas Telford Services Ltd, London, 1994.
3. Thiery, J. & Zaleski, S., Repairs and strengthening of
structures (inPolish). ARKADY Publishing, 3̂ Edition, Warsaw,
1982.
4. Parkinson, G., Shaw, G., Beck, J.K. & Knowles, D.,
Appraisal &Repair of Masonry. Thomas Telford Services Ltd,
London, 1996.
Transactions on the Built Environment vol 39 © 1999 WIT Press,
www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509