ABSTRACT
The Centro de Estudios y Experimentación de Obras Públicas (CEDEX) is an autonomous body organically attached to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of Spain, being the Laboratorio de Geotecnia one of its units. Although traditionally the activity of this Laboratory has been mainly aimed at the field of transport infrastructures, hydraulic works, and environmental geotechnics, throughout its history it has also carried out different works related to geotechnical pathologies of historical-artistic monuments and urban ensembles. Frequently, the cause of the pathology in these historical buildings or urban ensembles is the existence of an adjacent natural slope with special geological or geotechnical conditions. In these cases, the scope of the intervention of the Laboratorio de Geotecnia has been variable, from site investigation works, diagnosis, and proposal of corrective solutions to the accompaniment of the execution of repair work. Interesting examples are the following: a) works carried out to characterize the geotechnical problems of the “hanging houses” of the town of Frías (Burgos), declared a Historic-Artistic Site; b) studies carried out in the monumental complex of the Alhambra, in Granada; c) site investigation and reinforcement works at the historical building of the Parador Nacional de Turismo of Carmona, in Seville province. The objective of this communication is to offer an overview of some of these cases, not previously, or only poorly, published, in which the Laboratorio de Geotecnia has intervened in the past.
