Merlion
02-27-2007, 10:01 AM
Anybody familiar? Is this a new technology for cleaning bronze statues?
City Hall's Calder sculptures beaming after laser cleaning (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/16790532.htm)
At a small reception .... Mayor Street yesterday formally acknowledged the end of a major city conservation project.
After only 31/2 years, the great Alexander Milne Calder sculptures - the eagles, the Native Americans, the Swedish settlers - ringing the hall's tower have been cleaned, repaired and restored.
"Restoration is a very detailed and specific process that actually brings these sculptures back to their original form and original condition," Street said, ...
The $2 million restoration project, .... began in 2003 ....
... the enormous bronze sculptures immediately beneath Penn had not been cleaned or repaired for a century.
Andrzej Dajnowski, director of Chicago's Conservation of Sculpture and Objects Studio Inc., which undertook the restoration, used an advanced laser technology to remove grime from the sculptures' pitted bronze skins. It was a painstakingly slow process, he said, but only the laser method would prevent sludge and dirt from draining down the marble facade of the tower.
Each bronze eagle, with its 15-foot wingspan, took about three weeks to clean using the one-inch-wide laser beam, he said.
The technology has never been used on such a massive project. Dajnowski said the project represented "the largest and biggest sculpture cleaned anywhere in the world using laser technology."
Because of the successful completion, he predicted that lasers now "will become a trend in conservation."....
City Hall's Calder sculptures beaming after laser cleaning (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/16790532.htm)
At a small reception .... Mayor Street yesterday formally acknowledged the end of a major city conservation project.
After only 31/2 years, the great Alexander Milne Calder sculptures - the eagles, the Native Americans, the Swedish settlers - ringing the hall's tower have been cleaned, repaired and restored.
"Restoration is a very detailed and specific process that actually brings these sculptures back to their original form and original condition," Street said, ...
The $2 million restoration project, .... began in 2003 ....
... the enormous bronze sculptures immediately beneath Penn had not been cleaned or repaired for a century.
Andrzej Dajnowski, director of Chicago's Conservation of Sculpture and Objects Studio Inc., which undertook the restoration, used an advanced laser technology to remove grime from the sculptures' pitted bronze skins. It was a painstakingly slow process, he said, but only the laser method would prevent sludge and dirt from draining down the marble facade of the tower.
Each bronze eagle, with its 15-foot wingspan, took about three weeks to clean using the one-inch-wide laser beam, he said.
The technology has never been used on such a massive project. Dajnowski said the project represented "the largest and biggest sculpture cleaned anywhere in the world using laser technology."
Because of the successful completion, he predicted that lasers now "will become a trend in conservation."....