Controlled Intervention: Monitoring the Dismantlement and Reconstruction of the Flying Buttresses of Two Gothic Churches

This study on controlled intervention focuses on the interest of monitoring during structural interventions on historical constructions. In addition to being a mechanism for control or validation of the intervention, in some cases, an adequate monitoring system can be a prerequisite for the execution of complex structural interventions. In this contribution, the methodology of controlled intervention is applied on the dismantlement and reconstruction of flying buttresses and illustrated with two case studies. In one case, the St. James Church in Leuven, the monitoring process governs the intervention. For the other case, the Church of Our Lady in Laken, monitoring data are used to control and validate the design of the intervention measures. In both cases, thanks to the monitoring systems, the dismantlement was controlled in real-time and the disturbance to the structure could be kept to a minimum.