TEMPLES REVIVAL

The Vishnu Temple after the Aavin milk dairy, at Semmenjeri, at OMR Chennai, had an unique problem.The 16 pillared mandapa before the main shrine and the two 4 pillared mandaps before the Thayar and Andal Sannidhi were fully covered with thick coat of paint. Later the trustees of the temple, found that it looked ugly and they approached REACH FOUNDATION for removal of the paint, without affecting the structure and material composition of the granite pillar.

We took up this challenge, brought in geological experts, researcher from IIT in civil, our founder trustee Dr. T.Satyamurthy and P.R.O Chandra devised a method to clean the mandap in 2 days and one night using paint stripper first and then blasting them off with high pressure water jet. Normally this cleaning is proven and faster, against the conventional cleaning of granite walls and pillars for which HR & CE uses sand blasting ruptures the surface and develops fine cracks. The sculptures on the pillars were also retained to the finest details by this method. Thanks to the trustees Mr. Srinivasan and Mr. Kannan who gave us the opportunity to do this and develop a far more safe and clean technology than sand blasting.
See the photos here.

Labels: cleaning pillaras, REACH FOUNDATION, restoration, sand blasting, Semmenjeri, temple cleaning, temple renovation, water jet cleaning