Vindico repairs glass damage to glass monument near the Barentsz Sea

Date: 1 October 2012

The Witch monument Steilneset memorial in Vardö, Norway, was opened by Sonja, queen of Norway, in the presence of architect Peter Zumthor.

Queen Sonja opens Steilneset, architect Peter Zumthor (r) and Jerry Gorovoy (L)This memorial is dedicated to the victims of the witch-hunt in the place where 91 women were burned at the stake between 1598 and 1692.The construction of the monument started in 2009 and the structure consists of an open glass building (approx. 250m² front) with a glass composition of 2x tempered laminated, black coloured glass (Parsol) with 2 PVB films. The roof is made of Cor-ten steel, a corroded steel type that will not rust any further. Due to its location, 50m from the Barentsz Sea with a saline environment combined with the long construction period and runoff from the Cor-ten steel on the glass, when the provisional protection of the wooden casing was removed from the glass 2 months ago, it was a shock to discover that the glass was severely damaged.

Pollution from the saline environment, both on the inside and outside of the laminated glass

The glass construction was made by MBM Konstruktionen GmbH from Möckmühl, Germany, and Vindico Surface Technologies was asked offer a solution for this.

Vindico enlisted the help of its partner Haenen Onderhoud from Bladel to clean the glass. As the black colour of the glass did not allow it to be machine polished, everything had to be cleaned by hand on the inside and on the outside with a special polishing paste, in order to prevent any distortion in the reflection of the glass as a result of machine polishing. The prevailing temperatures in this northern part of Norway (never exceeding + 3° C) did not allow the glass to be preserved by using the Vindico N® coating, which can only be applied between + 10° and + 40°C. In this case, prevention would have been better than the cure and Vindico N® should have been applied to the glass at the factory, as this would also have protected the glass during construction and would have facilitated cleaning at a much lower cost.

The monument at the opening, in its original glass state.

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