The Puerta de la Trinidad will be under construction again before the summer. The Badajoz City Council will invest 82,000 euros in repairing this monument in the Ronda del Pilar to try to solve the humidity that has caused landslides and landslides for years.
The Councilor for Heritage, Jaime Mejías, explains that the investment is greater than in other repairs because the objective is to find a lasting solution. On several occasions, the Puerta de la Trinidad has suffered mishaps due to water leaks in the wall that create humidity in the monument.
The last landslide took place last week. A piece of the siding broke off and fell to the sidewalk. It was the second time something similar had happened, since a year earlier another area of the plaster had already disappeared.
In this situation, explains Mejías, the first step will be to prevent further landslides due to the danger they pose to pedestrians. To do this, the fortification maintenance brigade will review this door in the coming days and will remove the pieces of coating that are at risk of falling off. Ten years ago a collapse in this monument was about to trap two people.
The next step, details the mayor of Heritage, will be “do a miniproject” to repair the monument. He believes that the procedures will be quick and that the work could be carried out before the summer. The money is already available because it was reserved within the investment plan, since the municipal officials already had to intervene in the Puerta de la Trinidad before this monument suffered its last mishap.
collapse in 2012
The last major work on the gate was carried out just nine years ago. In 2012 several meters of the structure collapsed. It was in the same area where the humidity has appeared today.
The incident caused a lot of indignation, among other reasons, because the stones that fell spent weeks on the sidewalk of Ronda del Pilar. The repair was also delayed and did not start until a year later, in 2013. The project included the repair of the fallen canvas and an interior wall and cost 205,700 euros. In theory, this 17th-century monument was completely restored, but only a few years later dampness has resurfaced.
In fact, in 2013, just a few months after the €205,000 refurbishment, the brick niche that adorns the side of the door fell off. Again the repair took a long time to arrive, it was not replaced until 2015, two years after the detachment.
The Councilor for Heritage highlights that the Puerta de la Trinidad was one of the three entrances to the city and a
monument essential within the fortified structure. The collapse is due to moisture, but there are more complex causes. In 2013, an archaeological study of this structure was carried out which revealed that the damage was due to the way in which the Baluarte de la Trinidad was built, since the wall is resistant, but it is filled with earth and, if it is not thick enough, , cave-ins or cracks may occur.
In fact, the 2013 study concluded that there was not a single cause of the landslide that the Puerta del Pilar suffered and that they are now trying to prevent it from happening again.
The first cause was that the part that collapsed, and which is the one that is now suffering damage, is not original, but a reconstruction, since a gap was opened in 1934 to join San Roque with the Ronda del Pilar. In addition, this part was not joined to the rest of the walls. On the other hand, it was not thick enough to withstand the thrust of the earth.
Also, the shape of the wall, its curvature, was made outwards instead of inwards. Finally, the compaction of the fill land was insufficient, they used topsoil and everything caused the collapse.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.