The movement of residential buildings, public buildings and industrial structures (hereinafter, the movement of houses) may be in demand in connection with changes in the urban planning plan, the expansion of the road network, as well as for the safety of the operation of the building and its inhabitants.
The relocation of houses is especially relevant for the preservation of cultural and historical heritage sites, when it is necessary to make room for the development and expansion of the housing, social and/ or road network, and the demolition of the house is not possible due to the status of the monument.
Examples of moving houses in Russia and abroad are found repeatedly:
- so in 1455, engineer Aristotle Fioravanti was born in Italy in the city of Bologna (Bologna, 1415 – Moscow, 1486)
He moved the bell tower of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore (demolished in 1825) by 13 meters. The bell tower with a height of 25 meters with a base of 5 x 5 meters was moved without a single damage;
- in Russia in 1898, engineer O.M. Fedorovich moved the house of Robert McGill's widow along Kalanchevskaya Street. In 1897, it turned out that the stone house in which the widow lived prevented the expansion of the freight station of the Nikolaev railway. The two-storey mansion was brand new and solid, and Osip Markovich Fedorovich, a professor at the Moscow Institute of Railway Engineers, offered to move it, and Evgenia Ivanovna McGill gladly agreed and paid for all the work. With the help of horse traction, the mansion measuring 13 x 21 m and weighing 1,840 tons was moved one hundred meters.
The movement of houses was widely used in the USA. In 1915, in Pittsburgh, a church was moved inside the block in connection with the redevelopment of East Ohio Street. The building, measuring 33.5 x 19.8 m in plan and weighing 4,000 tons, was moved by 6.1 m. In 1919, in Detroit, a three-story reinforced concrete building of the General Motors company weighing 3 thousand tons and measuring 18 x 29 m in plan was moved by 137 m. The building had 4 exterior walls and 12 internal load-bearing columns. The speed of movement of the building per day was 15 m. Only wood was used as materials for all elements of the path.
- In 1920, 7 blocks of houses were moved in the suburbs of Detroit. During the movement of these buildings, heating, lighting, gas, water supply and sewerage worked normally.
- in 1921, the building of the J.J. Company was moved to Pittsburgh.Woodville. The building has eight floors and consists of a narrow metal frame measuring 24x6m; the weight of the building is 4,500 tons.
- The Indiana Bell Telephone Exchange Building
The movement in Indianapolis was carried out in 1930. The building with a plan size of 41.1 x 28.8 m, a building area of 1187 m2, weighing about 10,000 tons was moved inside the block, due to the need to build a new telephone exchange and rotated 90°.
- the building of the morgue in Pittsburgh, (dimensions in plan 22.9 x 33.5 m, weight 5,650 tons) – moved 9.75 m transversely, then 81.4 m longitudinally, crossing the street at the same time.
- One of the latest examples is the relocation of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Northern Connecticut in 1999. The lighthouse suffered from heavy surf and storms. It was decided to move him. The 129-year-old structure, 59 m high and weighing 5,000 tons, was moved 900 meters.
In 30-40 years . In the twentieth century, in connection with the expansion and construction of the metro in Moscow, a "Building Relocation Office" was created, which was later transformed into a trust. The trust was headed by a talented metrostroevets engineer E.M.Handel.
In total, in the period from 1935 to 1941, the trust in Moscow and the region moved 23 stone buildings, including:
- the feeder substation on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street was moved to 12 m in 1935;
- the laboratory building at the Aperelevka station of the Kiev railway – moved 70m;
- 1937 – the movement of houses in Khoroshevsky Serebryany Bor during the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal – the building having the shape of the letter "P" was cut along the stairwells into three sections and, in a new place, three houses were put in one line (section No. 2 was rotated 90 °).
- June 1937, house No. 77 on the street. Osipenko (now Sadovnicheskaya). The dimensions of the house are 88.6 m x 11.2 m; height from 19.73 to 23.5 m. The weight of the house is 8050 tons. The building had a "G" shape. The part of the house facing Sadovo-Krasnokholmskaya Street was to be moved. The building was cut into two rectangular houses. The cutting of the building (with a jackhammer) was carried out in the corner of the house along the staircase. In order for the part of the building facing Krasnokholmskaya Street to be moved to the red line, the movement was planned along a curve. The most distant radius was 159.56 m, and the closest to the center of rotation was 101.23 m. The length of the travel path was 53.19 and 33.72 m, respectively. The building was cut off 1.9 m above the basement floor.
- moving the house along Serafimovich St. in October 1937. The building was raised by 1.87 m and then moved to 74 m.
- house No. 24 on Gorky Street. The house was built in 1903. In connection with the reconstruction of the right side of the street, it was moved deeper into the block. The weight of the house was 22,400 tons;
- moving the house of the Moscow City Council along Gorky Street No. 31. – the beginning of reconstruction of the left side of the street. The building in the shape of a "P" with an area of 1710 m and a weight of 20 thousand tons has been moved by 13.65 m.
- 1979 relocation of the building of the editorial office of the newspaper "Trud" — the building was moved so that it would not block the new building of the editorial office of the newspaper "Izvestia"
Nowadays, old buildings are mostly preferred to be demolished. But, this is not always justified and is not always possible.
In December 2023, for the first time in 300 years, the building of the former imperial educational home, the house on the embankment, was moved in St. Petersburg. Black River No. 1. The house is an architectural monument, so its demolition is impossible.
Our company, JSC "Titran" participated in the project, performing work on the horizontal movement of the house.
The house with a plan size of 26.3 x 17.03 m, a ridge height of 15.8 m and a weight of 3.5 thousand tons was moved by us 6 m towards the Black River and then 41 m towards Bolshaya Nevka. Moving works. They were completed in two days (excluding preparatory work). When moving towards Bolshaya Nevka, the first half of the way the house was moved "uphill" - the height difference was 240 mm. At the same time, the facade of the house was leveled – the corner of the end from the embankment. The Black River turned 30 cm to get to the new red line. The house is installed on a new foundation – a stylobate slab of an underground parking lot. The positioning error of the house was +/-30mm.
Modern spinning jacks with a lifting capacity of 200 tons each were used as the driving force.
The relocation of the building made it possible to preserve the architectural monument and made room for further development of the residential complex.
Having a unique experience in moving a historic building in the center of St. Petersburg over unstable soils, we offer to carry out works on moving buildings in Russia and the near abroad, using the experience of the pioneer of this industry, E.M. Handel, and the most modern rigging equipment and technologies.
