Foundation analysis of the Rialto Bridge in Venice

In restoration and consolidation design, knowledge of the interactions between soil and structure plays a major role in structural behaviour over time. This aspect is particularly important when dealing with the city of Venice, where the buildings are generally characterised by significant total and differential settlements, as a result of stratigraphic variability and the pressure induced by varying types of foundation. The interactions between the construction and foundation as they develop over time must take the building\u2019s history into consideration, making full use of archive sources and on-site inspections. This paper presents a recent historical reconstruction of the behaviour of the Rialto Bridge foundations, as an example of soil-structure interactions within the framework of critical-state soil mechanics