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A30 world news
Diaranson 21 october 2020

Mexico halfway through quake restoration of old churches

damaged structures have ings leaning at crazy angles,
been restored. steadied with steel cables and
counterweights.
Architect Fernando Duarte Nor were the original build-
Soriano is restoring church- ers centuries ago faultless ge-
es for the Institute, known niuses; the restoration work
as the INAH, in the neigh- has uncovered some elemen-
boring state of Morelos. He tary errors, like the use of
points to the barrel-vault roof rounded river-stones in the
from the 1500s of the former lower parts of some walls.
convent of San Juan Bautista Their round shapes are in-
in Tlayacapan, Morelos that herently unstable and don’t
cracked and partly collapsed hold mortar well.
in the 2017 quake.
Experts restoring buildings
“Sometimes with community and monuments here have
members, we face a situation faced every kind of challenge:
where they say ‘it has been how to replace a bent old steel
so long, and you haven’t fin- support completely encapsu-
ished,'” says Duarte Soriano, lated inside a slender stone
noting that original materials column hundreds of feet
like lime mortar, wood and tall; how to fix foundations
stone take longer. “Imagine, sunk in swampy soil; how
these structures sometimes to restore church bell towers
(AP) — The earthquake portion of one wall remains, city depleted — or filled in took as long as 100 years to be that are central to village life.
struck in seconds, but while the collapsed dome was to create housing — Mon- built ... and in three years, we There have even been fires
three years later restor- built between 1740 and 1884 dragón says “in effect, it gets have managed to consolidate and takeovers by homeless
ers still face a monumen- — calling it “noble.” The harder every day to find good the structure.” people at one church under
tal task: about half of the dome didn’t collapse at the material.”Initially, restorers While the Tlayacapan con- restoration.
2,340 colonial-era build- moment of the quake, but thought that they would have vent, started in 1554, soon
ings and churches dam- rather five days later, leaving to dismantle what remained after the conquest, is nearing Filiberto Arias Araujo, the
aged in the 2017 Mexico time to get people and pre- of the dome and re-assemble completion there are dozens parish priest at the San Juan
quake still need to be re- cious objects out. it piece by piece, Mondragón of other churches that need Bautista church in Tlayaca-
paired, restored or par- said. urgent attention. pan, explains the importance
tially rebuilt. It is so dangerous to stand of the bells in Mexican village
beneath the remains of the But they realized that the Duarte Soriano headed up life. Church bells are com-
It is a titanic challenge: crum- dome that the tons of steel cause of the collapse had been teams that went out imme- monly rung as an alarm in
bling old stone and lime mor- structures are made off-site an enormously heavy central diately after the 2017 quake emergencies, or toll to gather
tar walls and domes, without and then gingerly lowered cupola that stood atop the to inspect 159 damaged townspeople together. After
an ounce of cement or rebar, into the crater at the center dome and which had been buildings in Morelos, often San Juan Bautista’s bell tow-
have to be built back with the where the dome once stood; leaning out of level because at enormous personal risk. ers were damaged in 2017,
same ancient materials. the steel beams simultane- the church was unevenly “The truth is there are vaults the town went silent for three
But that doesn’t mean the ously brace the remaining sinking into Mexico City’s on the verge of collapsing, years.
work is primitive. At the walls of the cupula, provide a notoriously swampy soil. So collapsed bell towers, domes,
Nuestra Señora de Los An- work platform just under the the collapsed part could be buttresses and walls that “They rang the bells recently
geles church near downtown dome and the arch over the rebuilt and mated with the were falling down. At times it as a test,” Arias Araujo said
Mexico City, the restora- top, to provide trusses for a remaining structure. wasn’t safe to go into all those of the restoration experts.
tion work has a space-age temporary metal roof. places, there was a chance “They wanted to see if there
feel: towering curved metal The $2 million restoration that part of it was going to were any vibrations, espe-
support structures are deli- The experts working on proj- effort at Nuestra Señora de come down on top of you.” cially in the facade, and the
cately lowered into place by ects like this across Mexico los Angeles will take at least people were saying ‘Great!
huge cranes, to support the face some of the same issues two years more; impatient Unable to correct inclina- We got shivers hearing what
half-collapsed dome of the confronting restorers ev- residents often ask experts tions in some structures, we hadn’t heard in three
church. Meanwhile, the oth- erywhere, like France’s re- why it is taking so long. To the best restoration work years, our bells, the voice of
er, standing half of the 100- building of the Notre Dame date, about 1,100 of the 2,340 will still leave some build- our town.’”
ton dome looms 80 feet (25 Cathedral: are the materials
meters) above workers. and craftsmen's skills of cen-
turies ago still available? How
“There is always a sensa- can you explain delays to im-
tion of risk being in there, patient modern citizens, for
of course, because you sense whom construction is some-
that pieces could come falling thing that is done in weeks or
down at any time,” said An- months?
tonio Mondragón, the archi-
tect at the National Institute “It is true that some of the
of Anthropology and His- finer, more specialized
tory who leads the restora- knowledge of these (con-
tion effort. “Any material that struction) crafts has been lost.
comes flying down from 25 This work is still being done,
meters (yards) would be very perhaps more clumsily, but
dangerous. There is always a the crafts remain and people
risk, and we know we can’t know how to work with these
stay inside very long.” materials,” Mondragón says,
referring to the quarry stone
Mondragón has gained a re- and super-light “tezontle”
spect for the old church — a volcanic stone used to build
chapel built in the late 1500s the original dome.
stood here, of which only a But with quarries near the