# Why not more “leaning” buildings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 7, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618 "2013-08-07T19:16:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/1 "2013-08-07T19:16:32Z")
Why is something like the Leaning Tower of Pisa so rare? In the past, there was no way to ascertain what kind of subterranean support existed, so how did they know whether a new building could be supported . . . especially something as heavy as a cathedral or colosseum? I’d think there’d be leaning buildings all over the world. Obviously, many wound up leaning to the point of collapse, or demolished for being uninhabitable or dangerous. But some of them - like a few houses I’ve seen in Amsterdam - don’t lean to the point of collapse. Why are there so few? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/2 "2013-08-07T19:23:16Z")
It’s kinda hard to sell a house which leans to the left. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/3 "2013-08-07T19:35:10Z")
Well, if you look at the history of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it’s a triumph of sheer bloodymindedness over engineering practicality. Having started it in 1173 and having it start to tilt in 1178, they then took almost 100 years to think about what they’d done, and then tried to patch it up rather than starting over. They took another 100 years to finish it. According to the Wikipedia article, this 100 year pause allowed the ground to compact, preventing it from tipping over. So probably most equally flawed projects either collapsed during construction or were abandoned once it became clear that some one had cocked it up a couple of generations previous. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/4 "2013-08-07T19:43:55Z")
You would think that, given 100 years, they could have just removed each block, one at a time, back down to the foundation, and then leveled the base and put the blocks back in reverse order. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/5 "2013-08-07T19:50:54Z")
It’s a matter of the ratio of the weight to the footprint. A tower on unsecured footing will visibly lean, while a collosseum or a cathedral will not, because the building sits on a great deal more base. If one end sinks a foot or two and the other end doesn,t it will not be noticed. Here is a list of 66 leaning towers. > **[List of leaning towers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaning_towers)** > > This is a list of leaning towers. A leaning tower is a tower which, either intentionally or unintentionally (due to errors in design, construction, or subsequent external influence such as unstable ground), does not stand perpendicular to the ground. The most famous example is the Leaning Tower in Pisa, Italy. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/6 "2013-08-07T19:55:03Z")
There have been plenty of leaning buildings. Once they lean all the way to the ground (the last part of the lean coming very rapidly) they aren’t considered buildings anymore and tend not to be left there to gawk at. Meidum, aka The Broken Pyramid is an example of the ancient Egyptians failing to provide a solid foundation for a large structure which eventually collapsed to some degree. Of course pyramids have the advantage of not leaning, simply collapsing. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/7 "2013-08-07T19:59:17Z")
Even modern buildings can exhibit the same phenomenon, due to the nature of towers and their narrow footings. Such as the water tower, in Groom, Texas. > **[Groom, Texas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_water_tower#Leaning_Water_Tower)** > > Groom is a town in Carson County, Texas, United States. The population was 574 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Amarillo, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is on Interstate Highway 40 (Historic Route 66) 42 miles (68 km) east of Amarillo and 215 miles (346 km) west of Oklahoma City. > Groom is located in the southeastern corner of Carson County at 35°12′11″N 101°6′24″W / 35.20306°N 101.10667°W / 35.20306; -101.10667 (35.203112, –101.106710). Interstate 40 bypasses the town to the n... ---
**Author:** ![sidecar\_jon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@sidecar\_jon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidecar_jon)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/8 "2013-08-07T20:18:02Z")
Gravity provides a good foundation given enough weight on the ground. I’ve been involved in several friends house renovations. Usually putting in damp membranes or digging down the living room to get better headroom, ive yet to see any foundations at all on houses built before WW2 in this area (UK Cornwall). One notable house had dead grass under its walls, they hadn’t even stripped off the turf before setting to with granite rubble and hammers. Hundreds of tons of stone makes a pretty stable house! I had imagined foundations to be huge structures securely underpinning buildings but experience shows that not to be true at all. Even new build foundations are not nearly as substantial as one might expect. And historical foundations were sometimes not there or just a wider under ground step to level the ground. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/9 "2013-08-07T21:00:19Z")
What is remarkable about the Tower in Pisa is not so much that it leans, but that, despite the fact that it visibly leans, it has not actually fallen down. Most other buildings that developed noticeable leans quite soon ceased to be buildings at all. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/10 "2013-08-07T21:08:03Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > But some of them - like a few houses I’ve seen in Amsterdam - don’t lean to the point of collapse. The only “leaning” houses that I’ve seen in Amsterdam have only a single wall leaning–to allow easier access to upper floor warehouse rooms. The other three walls are vertical and the leaning wall is pretty carefully constructed/anchored to be a deliberate feature. (There may be leaning hoses in Amsterdam that I missed, but the ones I’ve seen were deliberate.) [Amsterdam: Architecture](http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g188590-s201/Amsterdam:The-Netherlands:Architecture.html) > [@](#): > > Many people are under the wrong impression that lots of old canal houses in Amsterdam are leaning forwards or have gone squinty over the years. Not so. They were mainly built like that so that the gable was further out into the street to make it easier to haul everything in via the hook and window. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/11 "2013-08-08T04:06:57Z")
But you also see a lot of Amsterdam canal houses whose window openings are, at best, now parallelograms rather than rectangles. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/12 "2013-08-08T04:23:50Z")
Brick/block buildsings fall apart if the lean is so bad . This is actually not so much lean that its uncomfortable to be in then. Here’s a whole set of leaning buildings. > **[The Leaning Buildings of Santos, Brazil](https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/04/the-leaning-buildings-of-santos-brazil.html)** These apartments are safe because they are reinforced concrete. (the whole building leans as one block. ), And so they live on… they are getting so bad a lean as to be uncomfortable for human occupation. There are other leaning towers. > **[Tottering towers](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/10/24/tottering-towers)** > > A list of listing buildings eg the Frankenhausen church tower leans more and is taller. A tower in Bolagna , ital is much taller, but only has 1.3 degree lean ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/13 "2013-08-08T04:29:53Z")
[Big Ben is leaning…](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8815238/Bong-Big-Ben-becoming-leaning-tower-of-London-say-engineers.html) ---
**Author:** ![sidecar\_jon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@sidecar\_jon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidecar_jon)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/14 "2013-08-08T15:24:48Z")
I’ve tried using a spirit level in our 18 century house and wall wise, its pointless, nothing is level or straight… ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/15 "2013-08-08T15:36:28Z")
I used to frequent an old pub sunk by underground mineshafts in England’s Black Country called ‘[the Crooked House](http://www.thecrooked-house.co.uk/index.htm)’ - you could place a ball on one end of the bar and it looked like it rolled up hill. That place was weird, and definitely leaned. I think there’s loads of wobbly buildings around, it’s just that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a really extreme example. Most building that lean that much have, basically, collapsed. The Tower of Pisa leans a\* lot\*. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/16 "2013-08-08T17:08:38Z")
Lots of buildings have liens on them. What?? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/17 "2013-08-08T18:13:09Z")
Yes, the remarkable thing aboutthe LToP is not that it leans, but that it stopped (mostly) before it fell over. When the restoration/stabilization was started about 2 decades ago, the computer models suggested it was about to fall or should have already. If you look at the photos closely, it leaned one way, they eventually tilted the next floor to compensate, it leaned the other way, and they did it again before finishing the tower. It kept leaning a little bit more each century until the scientific analysis suggested it was about to fall, and serious efforts were made to fix the problem. IIRC some earlier attempts made the problem worse. There are plenty of out-of-kilter buildings in the world. Most are rectangular, built on a rectangular footing, and so one wall or one side would drop relative to others. Then the building might go parallelogram. The construction of the tower appears to be such that it tilted instead of drooping. (Large blocks and good mortar? One-piece base?) There are plenty of old buildings where sections are drooping and the brick pattern is shifted and broken, and the brick lines are visibly wavy. Venice is a good example. the foundations of many of the oldest buildings are pine logs pounded into the lagoon mud. Over the centuries, some are sinking faster than others and many buildings are uneven. the floor of St. Mark’s has some serious wave action. There are hundreds of buildings you can see around Venice where there are flat iron pieces and bolts on them, on the outside walls. long steel rods have been pushed though the buildings and bolted to a flat on opposite outside walls to stop the walls from falling outward due to building movement. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/18 "2013-08-08T18:43:40Z")
The[Oude Kerk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oude_Kerk_(Delft)) in Delft, Netherlands has a distinct lean to it. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/19 "2013-08-08T18:46:18Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > It’s kinda hard to sell a house which leans to the left. Maybe you’d have better luck in a blue state. ---
**Author:** ![sidecar\_jon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@sidecar\_jon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidecar_jon)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618/20 "2013-08-08T19:36:22Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > There are hundreds of buildings you can see around Venice where there are flat iron pieces and bolts on them, on the outside walls. long steel rods have been pushed though the buildings and bolted to a flat on opposite outside walls to stop the walls from falling outward due to building movement. Its pretty common round here too, either a big X or a round plate with a socking great threaded rod through the building under a floor holds the walls in… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-leaning-buildings/665618.md?page=2)