Aberdeen Music Hall

The Aberdeen Music Hall is currently undergoing a £7m transformation in a bid to bring it back to its former glory as a concert venue of renown. The project, which began in 2016, is heading into its final stages and is due to be unveiled in a grand reopening in December 2018. Overseen by Kier Construction, the revamp has been an extensive undertaking. One particular element of the restoration required specialist input, which is where our teams unique skillset came into play.

Challenge:

In the atrium of the Music Hall, a large statue of a young Queen Victoria had been in situ for over a hundred years and was a prominent focal point for those entering the building.

Over the years, the statue had fallen into considerable disrepair, with missing fingers on the hand that once held a sceptre, which was also damaged and separated from the statue.

Additionally, the toes of the statue were heavily marred and needed mending. The challenge was to repair these elements while preserving the statue’s historical integrity.

Solution:

To assess the requirements, Polygon’s Scotland Surface Repair Sales Manager attended the site along with one of Aberdeen's finishers to determine what was needed for the repair.

They used their combined expertise to establish a course of action and realised that a new product would be required to fulfil the job due to the unusual nature of the repair.

Polygon’s R&D Surface Repair department was tasked with finding the solution, which led to the development of a new putty that could be used to reconstruct the fingers of the statue's hand.

Equipped with this new product, the finisher was able to reshape the hand, allowing it to grip the sceptre once more. The fingers and toes were restructured, and the challenge then shifted to colour matching the newly revamped components with the existing ones.

After consulting with Kier, the decision was made to spruce up the entire statue, applying an appropriate level of cleaning and polishing to ensure a uniform appearance.

Outcome:

With the hand and toes remoulded, the sceptre reattached, and the rest of the statue properly restored, the overall look was extremely impressive.

Multiple Kier agents working on the site praised the quality of the repair, with many coming out of their way to see the finished article, which garnered blanket praise and general amazement.

Interesting Facts:

• The statue’s hands were 10 feet off the ground, making access to the repair a tricky prospect, so scaffolding was required.
• An entirely new product was developed to fix the statue, with Plastic Surgeon’s head of R&D tasked with researching it.
• The Music Hall was designed by Archibald Simpson, a prominent local architect whose work was renowned for helping to fashion the character of Aberdeen as "The Granite City."