STS PETER AND PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
Whether you're reattaching a broken piece on a household trinket, or preserving an entire cathedral, the end goal appears to be the same.
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That is, that nobody will notice it was ever broken to begin with. That's essentially what Geoff Cunningham from Project Strategies Australia hopes for when people visit and see Sts Peter and Paul's Cathedral for themselves after its most recent restoration.
The phrase they use is "modern technology, masked," Geoff said.
There's a stunning amount of work that has gone on, whether it was to reinforce the foundations, literally clamp the roofing frame back together to stop it spreading, improve access and safety for those who need to go into the crypt, fix various drainage issues above and below, return all sorts of surfaces to a plausibly-original state, or bring the fire safety and electrical systems up to modern-day code without looking any different, the untrained eye isn't supposed to be able to tell that anything was done at all.
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With a building as big, important, old, and meant to be periodically occupied as the cathedral is, the number one priority in the planning phase was safety.
If the structure hadn't been made more stable, underneath and overhead, then everything else would have been for nought.
Geoff explained that the planning phase of the most recent works was a 12 month process itself, from late 2020 to late 2021, and then what everyone is keen to celebrate now is the 12 months of painstaking handiwork from November 2021 to November 2022 by many talented and experienced people from multiple organisations
To give you some of the more major examples, one section required the addition of 36 new piers, all dug in on an angle to support the existing footings.
Water destroys sandstone over time, and there was a lot of sandstone used to build the cathedral. Geoff explained that a substantial amount of hidden engineering is under a period-correct outer layer, so the building is better in so many ways that you will probably never see.
Heritage Council of NSW needed to be satisfied with all the work too, and one of the details kept absolutely accurate was replacing the slate tiles from the same quarry in Wales that the originals came from, and just in time too because it's due to close.
The fleche (gothic spire) atop the roof was so delicate that it had to be rebuilt in place.
The windows in the eastern section were removed and rebuilt by hand.
All the grout that was redone around the building was redone by hand using the original techniques.
In fact, it's staggering that so much got done in just a 12 month period.
One final thing to close with, Geoff, and head of the restoration committee Dr Ursula Stephens, were both full of praise for all the work that everyone did.
"It's been such a fantastic project for all concerned," Geoff said.
"Everyone is so happy with the result. It was one of those projects where people were emotionally caught up in it, which was brilliant."
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