A study on the earthquake resistance of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, conducted for the Cathedral Chapter of Córdoba by the Department of Building Structures and Geotechnical Engineering at the Higher Technical School of Architecture (ETSA) of the University of Seville (US), has concluded that the monument “would only suffer minor damage” in one part of the Patio de los Naranjos.
This was explained by two members of the ETSA research team who authored the study, María Victoria Requena and Antonio Morales, during a presentation held this Wednesday in Córdoba. The event, in the form of a lecture titled “The Mosque-Cathedral in the Face of an Earthquake: A Theoretical Case”, detailed how the monument would respond to a hypothetical seismic event.
Requena and Morales emphasized that the study is pioneering, “because it uses cutting-edge technology to create finite element numerical models, which allow for the analysis of various proposed earthquake scenarios.”
The key to the Mosque-Cathedral’s seismic resistance, according to Professor Antonio Morales, “lies in the monument’s own structure, arranged in naves formed by arcades over columns, which gives it flexibility to withstand movement.”
Moreover, the simulations demonstrated that in the most common scenarios, the Mosque-Cathedral would only suffer minor damage to the north façade of the Patio de los Naranjos, while the rest of the structure would withstand the earthquake without major issues.
At the same event, the Dean-President of the Cathedral Chapter, Joaquín Alberto Nieva, explained that this study “is part of the various protection and prevention protocols established by the chapter institution,” and that these protocols are “constantly being revised and improved.” These include the self-protection plan, the asset safeguarding plan, and the fire prevention plan—measures that are not well known to the public but are very useful for managing the monument.
Gabriel Rebollo, the monument’s conservation architect, added that “this study covers an area that had not previously been approached scientifically, which makes this research extremely useful and important for the conservation work being carried out.”
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