Preservation and reconstruction of historic monuments in Saint Petersburg with provisions for soil-structure interaction

Many important historic monuments in Saint Petersburg have been analysed by the authors using a soil-structure interaction (SSI) approach. Among them are the Stock Exchange Building, the Admiralty Building in central Saint Petersburg, and St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in the town of Kronshtadt near Saint Petersburg. These projects are presented in the paper. It is shown that SSI is a very powerful tool in analysing historic monuments. The potential of this method lies in the complete description of the stress-state of the monuments and in a possibility to develop measures for the monuments' remediation. To fulfil this method successfully, a comprehensive survey of the monuments is needed. Essential parts of such a survey are condition surveying of structural elements and foundations, geophysical research, soil sampling and testing. Influence of geotechnologies on adjacent buildings in congested urban conditions is also discussed in the paper.