Safety and/or security of monuments? An apparent dilemma

摘要

The Italian word sicurezza, the German Sicherheit and the Spanish seguridad includernmeanings that in English are distinct in safety and security and in French in sécurité and sûreté. Therninherent ambiguity, reflecting the engineering measures of defense and protection, deserves considerationrnin every technical activity. The topic is relevant to the safeguard and possibly to the secureguard ofrnimportant monuments acted upon by enormous tourist pressure. The paper accounts for the reasonsrnthat were considered in 1989, when the public access to the Tower of Pisa was temporarily interdicted.rnSafety (structural, geotechnical, seismic, …) was obviously given attention, but the unpopular decisionrnwas mainly supported by considerations of security. Nowadays the world over famous monument hasrnreached the definitive stabilization, thanks to the excellent work carried on by some eminent Colleagues.rnSafety and security can hardly be separated in engineering responsibility and should be considered as differentrnaspects of the same problem.