SANT'ANNA CHAPEL
EXTRAORDINARY MAINTENANCE OF A SACRED BUILDING
Project team:
1. Paolo Galantini (Team Leader)
2. Marco Biondi
3. Alessandro Baglieri
4. Mario Provenzano
5. Elisa Cini
Location: Torre del Lago, Lucca - Migliarino Regional Park - San Rossore - Massaciuccoli
The S. Anna Chapel, owned by the Parish of San Giuseppe, is located in Torre del Lago in the Municipality of Viareggio (Lucca), within the area of the Migliarino San Rossore Massaciuccoli Regional Park. The intervention carried out by Studio Galantini appears, on the regulatory level, as extraordinary maintenance, but the singularity of the architectural object and the nature of the proposed solutions configure it as a restoration.
The chapel was built in 1973 on a project by the Florentine engineer Valdemaro Barbetta, by the will of his mother Anna; it stands on land related to the so-called Lagomare settlement, built by the engineer Barbetta himself prior to the establishment of the Park Authority and has become a reference for the inhabitants of the area.
The architecture is strongly characterized by the structural solution: three trestles, consisting of two solid wood beams, which statically configure a portal of two rods and articulated by three metal hinges at the feet and at the top, solve the work in its substance. The roof rests on a ridge beam that joins the top of the second and third trestles, forks at the intersection with the second trestle and the two resulting beams lower, the cover follows them, freeing the top of the first portal (di facade, to use the usual terminology), which assumes the role of a belfry.
The simplicity of the structural design suggests a strong creative gesture. The result is a refuge; time has concluded the work, working on the material of the roof, camouflaging it with the bark of the pines of the wood in which the work is immersed.
The weather was also a negative factor: the deterioration of the wooden parts, especially at the base of the most exposed trestles, in the past led to an impromptu but effective intervention, creating splinting using commercial steel profiles, joined by welded calastrelli and metal rims.
In 2010, due to the extent and extent of the deterioration, the structure was deemed unsafe and therefore declared unfit for use.
The works of Studio Galantini, which began in April 2013, were completed on the following 8 August, returning the structure to its original aesthetic to the community, restoring its functionality, both as a liturgical place and as a meeting place.
The first observations on the building suggested acting with conservative restoration criteria, which could reconcile the static needs with the formal recovery of the original structure.
The steel superstructures, now perceived as integral to the object and undoubtedly functional, albeit empirically, to structural statics, at first were also intended for conservation.
The criterion of maximum caution suggested at first to operate locally, consolidating the wooden components by removing and replacing the damaged parts that had a degradation of between 75% and 100%. The wood foreseen for the intervention is of the same essence as the one replaced, to respect the unity of the whole.
An accurate static analysis of the structure, together with the instrumental examinations of the workers in charge of the intervention on the wooden parts, made it possible to abandon the criterion of maximum caution, freeing most of the wooden components from the metal superstructure, providing them with a studied and very light bracing system in steel cables, hidden by the roof.
The almost total removal of the metal structure made it possible to return a minimal but coherently studied work to its original value, defined by the extreme and transparent structural simplicity.
The technical complexity of the intervention did not prevent to safeguard the landscape value of the roof, perfectly integrated with the vegetation of the surrounding pine forest.
This result was achieved by keeping the structure suspended by means of a scaffolding system designed for the occasion, which had the ability to withstand the load and stress transmitted by the roof during the operations of replacing the deteriorated wooden parts of the supports on the ground of the entire structure.
The restoration works were carried out by the Antica Toscana company of Monsummano Terme, according to the project developed by Eng. Paolo Galantini, with the collaboration for the structural part of Eng. Renato Terziani.