Uploaded on 2015-04-26 by vincmondelli

This picture is from a part of my own house in Sannicandro di Bari, Italy. The house is over 150 years old and was build with masonry. Its masonry consists in stones of a local type (calcareous), in fact there were some quarries in the countryside of my village. In fact the building technique is similar of that people used to build old retaining wall in the countryside. On the top of the door there's a masonry arch that supports the major part of the masonry above the opening and below it there's a very particular old steel beam. In the past there was a timber beam but my grandfather changed it taking this steel beam that came from another place. He said me that he bought it from Germany, but I'm not sure of this. Nevertheless I think that for that years in my region this was a very strange wedding between a very old building technique and a new kind of material. I try to identify other similar exemples of this kind, but I haven't found any other similar application in old existing building in my area. Consequently I can say that it's unique in his kind for my geographical area [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14300519346429138.jpg