Collapse and reconstruction of the tower of the St Willibrordus church at Meldert Lummen (B)

© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London. The 17th century tower of the St Willibrordus church at Meldert/Lummen collapsed on July 7, 2006. The three-leaf walls of the tower are composed of ferruginous sandstone paraments with a rubble infill. This paper deals with the multi-disciplinary investigation of the causes of the tower collapse. Based on archaeological and building history data, combined with the evaluation of structural aspects during cleaning up of the tower debris, the damage phenomena as well as the collapse mechanism could be reconstructed. That enabled to develop the appropriate concepts and technologies for the construction of a new tower and for the restoration of the damaged parts of the church nave. The important phases of the restoration and renovation project are described, in which the relations between the interventions and the damages are explained. The restoration was executed in the period 2011-2013.

ISBN:978-1-138-02951-4

Publication year:2016