"Pisa's bell tower is nearly 200 feet tall and 55 feet wide, weighing 14,000 tons and currently leaning at a five-degree angle (as of June 2010). It started to lean almost immediately after construction began... The Tower was built over two centuries by at least three different architects. You can see how each successive architect tried to correct the leaning problem - once halfway up (after the fourth story), one at the belfry on the top.
"The first stones were laid in 1173... Five years later, just as they'd finished the base of the first arcade, someone said, "Is it just me, or does that look crooked?" The heavy Tower was obviously sinking into the marshy, multilayered, unstable soil. They carried on anyway."
Steves then goes on to describe two centuries worth of attempts to correct the lean in the Tower. Really? That's how it happened? This sounds like the most haphazardly thrown together building ever. "This building is screwed, but let's keep going just for the hell of it?" Okay. I wonder how many other projects this crew got after green-lighting a leaning tower...
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