Project of the 1st stage of Plavecký castle static reinforcement restoration.
2013 was a ground-breaking year for Plavecký Castle, particularly because after more than 300 years, the caste objects have been restored and statically reinforced and the brickwork has started to increase rather than decrease. In the past years, static and architectonic-historic research of the selected objects has been performed.
Thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture of the SR via the grant program “Restore your House”, a successful reinforcement activities of the North Gothic Palace continued in 2016.
North Gothic Palace
The palace is a three-floor object, which was added and inserted into the material of the older gothic fortification, including brick gallery and finished by embrasure in 15th century . Today, it has the best preserved north external wall and partially also south wall, which was statically reinforced in 2015. From the point of view of the total stability or risk of collapse, the riskiest part of the palace was its west wall torso. In 2016, maintenance and completion of the brick work in the volume of 29 m3 was done, as well as a number of architectonic details was renewed, as well as headboard console and niche of the third floor, partial renovation of the renaissance garderobe, and older crenelle and original embrasure on the outer part of the façade of the northern wall of the palace, stabilisation of the window and entry apertures on the first and second floor, which stabilised the entire northern wall of the palace and therefore prevented its collapse. This was the most risky objects of the castle, which was successfully maintained and stabilised for next generations. V roku 2016 bolo potrebné pre samotné statické zabezpečenie veže postaviť lešenie vo veľmi obtiažnom teréne z interiéru do výšky 11 m a exteriéru a do výšky 18 m a nad vyše 100 m hlbokou roklinou. In 2016, for the particular static reinforcement of the tower, it was necessary to build scaffolding in a very difficult terrain from the interior up to 11 m of height and from the exterior up to 18 m of height over 100 m deep fall. The entire process of static reinforcement was logistically complex and required transport through three pulleys, which represented over 73 tons of material. Dozens of Belgian scouts helped with the works at the castle during summer holidays, who helped with support works, such as clearing of the castle from wind pollination vegetation, transported rocks, water and sand. In the end, his Excellency, Willem Van de Voorde, Belgian ambassador, visited the castle and supported our efforts.
Progress of works on renewal of the scuntions of the nich and side brick work of the 3rd floor
The entire work at the given objects was done by quality manual work, while using original materials (stone collected from the surface of the castle) and technologies (preparation of middle age hot lime mortar with usage of pozzolan additives – Metakaolin). The works took place from June through October, whereas this time period gave us enough time for the carbonisation of mortar before freezing weather.
