Tuesday, June 8, 2010

UNESCO advises against routing the TGV underneath Gaudí's Sagrada Família

[Originally published in racócatalà on 4 June 2010]


A report by Unesco's Council on Monuments declares that the temple "is not prepared to withstand with any confidence any unforeseen disasters"


Unesco has advised that the route of the TGV tunnel that currently passes close by both the Sagrada Família and La Pedrera in Barcelona be modified. The International Council on Monuments affirms that the high-speed train tunnel "fulfills the typical requirements" but that the temple "is not prepared to withstand with any confidence any unforeseen disasters, like the sudden collapse of the structures next to the tunnel". Per the visit last February to Gaudí's works, the experts Rolf Katzenbach and Wolfgram Jäger propose a "preferred solution" of modifying the route and moving it farther away from the Sagrada Familia and the Pedrera, or to prepare more safety fallbacks for the route (like a double protection wall) so that the temple is not affected. Another proposed measure is freezing the area when the tunneling machine goes through so as to avoid water filtration.

Despite the publication of this report, the definitive position of the Unesco will not be official until the end of July, when the committee meets that is in charge of following the World Heritage Sites.

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