elephantine museum restoration

Elephantine Poject Aswan Old Museuem The project was under The German Archeological institute in Cairo , as a part of Aswan Archeological Expedition. under supervision of the Architect and the current Aswan Expedition Director Professor Martin Saehlhof.

The project was a pilot project of restoring an Classical English Building placed in the southern tip of elephantine Island in Aswan infront on the position overlooking the 1st cataract position opposite to the old Cataract Hotel.

Supervised by Dr.Martin Saehlhof Drawings by Mahmoud Fahmy

Project Breif The Restoration Project is under the umbrella of the German Archeological institute to be one of many project under refurbishment or rebuilt temple in the expedition site of elephantine island ,and it was researched recently provideing valuable specification and requirment to be applied an formed the parameters on which the building was refurbished the old museum is a two connected buildngs the first built on 1908 to be a rest house for the engineer wallas cook and then was refunctioned to be an adminstrative building for the 1st cataract infront of elephantine island the extention building was built on 1960 and still not labeled as an antiquitie building but it was take in consideration for the connection with the old building and what was caused by this connection.

The German Archeological Institute held the responsibilty of dealing with the elvation of the 1908 building based on the parameters accounted by ithe previously held research also by the institute

Elephantine Aswan-Old Museum

Rendered image for the results

Overview Render

01 Stonework Restoration

01.1-Elevation Minute Fixation The stone work was rendered in three sectors: 1-The hooks and the stone opening backfilll after a long process of sampling to find the right mixture mimicing the texture adhisvnes and color of the original stone elevation (fig1) 2-Application of salt sucktion compresses on the rose Qiuons (fig2) 3- fixing the grapevine mortar joints between the granite brick on the building's walls (fig3)

(fig1)

Cement and Granite mixture Paraloid G47 Original granite Brick

(fig2)

(fig3)

02 Woodwork Restoration

02.1- Pavillion The Roof Paviollion was refurbished by replacing the whole stepped floor and adding two staircases between the rooftop and the balcony(fig18),fixing the Columns,and repainting the brackets ,dentils,ceiling and column with their original 1905 color palette (fig5) (fig4)

02.1.1-Pavillion Ceilling Ornate The Paviollion ceiling was repainted in theoriginal 1905 color palette and the ceilig ornate was fixed by adding a layer of wood backfilling the repainted to the original 1905 palette

02.2.1-Balustrades all of the balustrades were removed and replaced with newly pitch pine Balustrades made to sustain heat and droughtness of aswan weather (fig6)

02.2.2- Columns and Pilaster bothe elements needed to be repainted with their original color after refurbishment and craks refilling , each element finished with 2 layers of veniguard and and 2 layers of creamy white paint color

Original wood Veniguard plaster (fig7)

Creamy white paint

(fig8)

(fig9)

02.(1.2)(3.1)(4.1)-Final ornaments

02.3-Side Gables The Brackest ,The Dentils, the eave and the Dormer widows were repainted to their 1905 original color

The top ornament of the Roof and Pavillion Gables were refurbished and placed again in its positon

(fig10) (fig11)

02.4-Gables The Brackest ,The Dentils, and the eave were repainted to their 1905 original color pallete (fig13)

(fig12)

02.5-The Openings the Shutters were repainted in the original 1905 paint and the grille, windows ,doors were repainted and got there mechanical handle replaced

(fig14) (fig15)

03 Gable Roof Restoration

03.2(02.1.3)-Pavillion Floor

03.1-Gutters Instalation An Aluminum Gutter was installed to compensate the improvised connection between the 1905 building gable roof and 1960 buildingin roof top (fig 16).

The gutter are screw nailed togather to overcomethe heat expansion damage caused by Aswans atmosphere (fig17)

(fig17)

The Roof Paviollion was refurbished by replacing the whole stepped floor and adding two staircases between the rooftop and the balcony(fig18)

(fig18)

(fig16)

03.3-Chimney Pot The Chimney Pot was destroyed due to weather conditions and was measured to be replaced by a replica (fig20)

(fig 20)

03.4-Roof Tiles Some terracotta tiles were either bent or halfbroken or completely removed , so a scanning was applied to mark the needed Roof tiles to be replace with original tiles remaining from a previous demolition for the western veranda of the1905 building that exsisted before the1960 building constructed over it (fig22)

(fig23)

(fig 21) (fig24)

03.5-Roof Frame Structure the construction of the 1960 cut open the weight transition flow in the roof frames as shown in (fig 23-24) and wooden supports were integrated to amend this structure defaue and also an additional slope was added to the roof skin to overlap the 1960 rooftop(fig24)