Louis Vandenabeele
The Basilica of St Anthony in Padua: Deciphering the building history of a landmark pilgrimage church
The Basilica of St Anthony in Padua (Veneto) is one of the main pilgrimage site of the 13th and 14th centuries in Italy. The oldest document mentioning the brick church attests to a construction site on the outskirts of Padua in 1238, seven years after the death of the Portuguese-born Franciscan friar (1195–1231). After an initial construction phase between the 1230s and 1260s, the Basilica was swiftly enlarged until the early 14th century to gain its massive silhouette dominated by oriental-style domes, likely inspired by the Basilica of St Mark in Venice.
Despite a large body of art historical research, the early history of the Basilica of St Anthony is largely unknown due to the loss of medieval archives directly related to the construction site. The dating of the individual parts of the current fabric is further complicated by an intricate sequence of collapses, fires, reconstructions and additions, which are partially documented by archives from the 15th century onwards.
Launched in April 2019, the present SNSF project aims at establishing a coherent timeline for the construction of the Basilica using state-of-the-art building archaeology methods and absolute dating techniques. The entire church is surveyed using laser scanning, photogrammetry and thermal imagery. Such techniques provide a precise documentation of the complex brickwork and the timber structures, supporting the analyses of a wide range of construction techniques and the mapping of different building phases. Furthermore, the timber domes are investigated with dendrochronology (in collaboration with the Laboratory Dendrodata, Verona) while the masonries are dated using radiocarbon analyses of mortar samples and organic material (in collaboration with the Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zurich). These findings are systematically confronted to the existing body of research on the Basilica, further contextualized through archival investigations and compared with other edifices. Gradually, this multi-faceted study paves the way for an unequivocal dating of the pilgrimage landmark, together with a finer understanding of medieval building techniques in Northern Italy.
The outcomes of this four-year project will be presented in a new monograph reassessing the exceptional building history of the Basilica of St Anthony, as well as in a doctoral thesis focusing on the eight timber domes.
The project is funded by the external page Swiss National Science Foundation and carried out in collaboration with the external page Venerenda Arca di Sant’Antonio
Roofs with Roots. The historical developments of timber roof structures in 19th- and early 20th-century Belgium
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2018
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the rise of iron and concrete in Belgium’s monotone skyline did not prevent timber, one of man’s oldest material, from feeding the booming demand for roof structures in city halls, churches, train stations, schools, theatres, or factories. Yet the timbered summits of Belgium’s built landscape are not only overlooked, but also endangered due to the lack of knowledge about timber roof structures and their absence in the current valuing process of heritage.
This multi-faceted study explores the sinuous path from craftsmanship to engineering followed by timber roofs in 19th- and early 20th-century Belgium, casting a new light on the collision between the old traditional world and the modern industrial age. Nourished by detailed on-site investigations, research in building archives, and in- depth analyses of historic carpentry manuals, this work covers five intertwined topics spanning from remote forests to assembly details: material, theory, construction, form, and joints.
From a historical perspective, this study brings out from the dust and darkness the unsuspected stories conveyed by these structures bearing the marks of past practices, theories and networks. Beyond their crucial structural role, timber roofs prove to be a rich and privileged access to history, and consequently an intrinsic part of the built heritage. From the point of view of preservation, this work offers the base of knowledge to decode the properties of historic materials and building techniques, a fundamental prerequisite for intelligent and effective interventions on 19th- and early 20th-century Belgian timber roof structures.
Research funded by a PhD grant of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), and by a Strategic Research Program Growth funding of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
Awards
- 2021 First price, external page SNSF Scientific Image Competition
- 2021 Best Paper Award (2nd author), Seventh Int. Congress on Construction History
- 2018 Best Paper Award, Sixth International Congress on Construction History
- 2014 Victor Horta Award, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
- Vandenabeele, L.; Bertels, I.; Wouters, I.: Le savoir-faire des constructeurs de charpentes en bois en Belgique au XIXe siècle. In : Construire ! Entre antiquité et époque contemporaine. Actes du 3e congrès francophone d'histoire de la construction, Nantes, 2017. Paris: Picard, 2019, 819–830.
- Vandenabeele, L.; Bertels, I.; Wouters, I.: Joining techniques in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Belgian timber roofs. In: Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Construction History, Brussels, 2018. Leiden: CRC Press, 2018, 1321–1328.
- Vandenabeele, L.: Les charpentes en fer et bois au XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle en Belgique. In: Patrimoines de fonte, fer et acier, Brussels: FABI, 2018, 207–212.
- Vandenabeele, L.: La charpente de la Maison du Roi: Essai de reconstruction d'un chantier anachronique. In: Bruxelles Patrimoines, 25, 2017, 16–21.
- Vandenabeele, L.; Bertels, I.; Wouters, I.: The timber roof of the gothic revival Broodhuis (Brussels, 1873-1895): design, construction and collaboration. In: Building Histories. The Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the Construction History Society, Cambridge, 2017. Cambridge: Construction History Society, 2017, 213–224.
- Vandenabeele, L.; Bertels, I.; Wouters, I.: From de l'Orme's to Hetzer's arch roofs: engineering the elegance. In: Further Studies in the History of Construction. The Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference of the Construction History Society, Cambridge, 2017. Cambridge: Construction History Society, 2017, 345–354.
- Vandenabeele, L.; Bertels, I.; Wouters, I.: Baltic shipping marks on nineteenth-century timber: their deciphering and a proposal for an innovative characterization of old timber. In: Construction History, 3, 2016, 157–175.
- Vandenabeele, L.; Bertels, I.; Wouters, I.: Designing timber trusses in Belgium during the age of iron engineering. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions, Leuven, 2016. Leiden: CRC Press, 2016, 612–619.
- De Fossé, M.; Vandenabeele, L.: Historische pakhuizen in Brussel. In: Agora, 2, 2015, 12–15.
- De Fossé, M.; Vandenabeele, L.: Brusselse pakhuizen in de negentiende en de twintigste eeuw. In: Erfgoed van Industrie en Techniek, 4, 2014, 20–29.
Book reviews
- Vandenabeele, L.: Hélène Vacher, André Guillerme: L'essor de l'Ecole Eyrolles au XXe siècle. In: Construction History 1/2019, 131–132.
Louis is a consultant for the Competence Center for Preservation.
Contact
Bauforschung u.Konstruktionsgesch.
Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 27
8093
Zürich
Switzerland