Page 7 - aruba-today-20230127

a7
local Friday 27 January 2023
Lime to be tested on the monument of School 1888

ORANJESTAD – At the be- and after this it moved to
ginning of January, Sticht- Madurostraat, and the
ing Monumentenfonds Aru- name was changed to
ba (Aruba Monument Fund Prinses Margrietschool in
Foundation, SMFA) began 1943. During World War II,
big maintenance work on the building served as de-
the exterior of the building fence barracks. The func-
that is now known as Al- tion of barracks brought a
gemene Rekenkamer Aru- lot of change for the build-
ba, which is a monument ing, to which different new
known under the name of parts were constructed.
School 1888. Between 1953 and 1955
the old building was reno-
The building in Whilhelimi- vated and it became Pub-
nastraat is part of the 16 lic Reading Room and Li-
monuments owned by brary (Openbare Leeszaal
SMFA, and the foundation is en Boekerij) and after 1982
in charge of maintenance, it served as government of-
and this building certainly fices.
is a big challenge for the
foundation. In various oc- plied only on a portion of In 2005 the restoration and
casions, investments were the façade, and the rest of expansion of the building
made in maintenance and the building will get regular began, for which all non-
in the short term deteriora- maintenance as was done original parts, that were
tion was noticed on the in the past, when blast fur- not part of the protection
building. This deterioration nace cement was used. of the monument, were
is probably caused by the removed and the building
change in material in the After different companies was expanded in a more
past, where it was switched which participated in the modern style. For many
over to plaster and ce- courses for lime application years already it is the of-
ment which caused that in the past made an offer fice of Algemene Rekenka-
the wall could not breathe for the project, the mainte- mer Aruba (General Audit
and made the stones in nance work was entrusted Chamber Aruba, ARA)
the wall deteriorate little by to GPS Construction. Aside
little. Originally, the build- from this, a invitation was For the current mainte-
ing was made using lime. extended to other compa- nance project, ARA will re-
For this reason, SMFA made nies that want to observe main in the building, and
the decision to test on the In the last few years, SMFA cho and at the California the process so they can SMFA thanks the workers of
building, by substituting carried out different re- Lighthouse, lime was used also experience the tech- ARA for the understanding
the existing plaster for a search and courses regard- in order to go back to the nique of plaster with lime. and apologizes in advance
plaster based on lime. The ing the technique of lime original material and this is for the inconvenience that
paint that will be applied application together with giving good results. School 1888 may be caused by the
will also be based on lime, experts from the United For this reason, the decision The Monument School 1888 maintenance work.
which will allow the wall to States as well as Trinidad was made to apply this to was built between 1887
breathe. and Tobago. In the proj- the Monument School 1888 and 1888 and was de- At the end of the project,
ects for the Lime Kiln in Ran- as well. Lime will be ap- signed by the chief of the they will have a beauti-
construction department ful monument once more
in Curaçao, Antoine Martis, to represent them. With
in a neoclassic style. Origi- this maintenance project,
nally it was the first public SMFA continues preserving
school of Aruba. In 1921, the beautiful monument of
the school received the School 1888 for the future.q
name of Julianaschool,