Painting and wood rot repair Mint Building

'MONUMENTAL WORK IS A FUN PUZZLE'

The Leiderdorp branch of Coen Hagedoorn Bouwgroep is performing painting and minor wood repair work on the transformed Rijksmunt building in Utrecht. "In such an old building, you always come across surprises," says Coen Hagedoorn.

Coen Hagedoorn Bouwgroep has 28 branches throughout the country and has all the expertise in house: from planned to large-scale maintenance and renovation/sustainability to new construction, daily maintenance and changeover maintenance. One of the specialties of the Leiderdorp branch is monumental painting. Project manager Matthijs van der Linden of Coen Hagedoorn Leiderdorp: "By now, some of our people are specialized in monumental painting. We recently obtained the KIWA url 4009 certificate. We drew up a policy for this work and described the process and gave professionals additional training. The working method is really different than in non-monumental buildings, because you want to preserve precisely the monumental value." Work is done according to the restoration ladder. Simply put: first see what you can preserve and conserve, repair if necessary and only replace if that is really not possible. This is preceded by the necessary research. 

Return to original state

Van der Linden works more often with main contractor and recognized restoration company Jurriëns Bouw, which is also part of Coen Hagedoorn Bouwgroep, on monumental properties. "Monumental work is always a puzzle and we find it a fun one. For example, the client of this project wants to restore the exterior walls of the building to their exact original state, but with preservation. Think fineo glass and roof insulation. There is just little documentation. For example, for research into the original colors, we can go to paint manufacturer Wijzonol with some paint chips so they can determine the original color in the laboratory. In another monumental project, all the profiled interior window frames are being removed. After the renovation of the building, they will be adapted to current standards and replaced. So preservation of monumental value."

Coen Hagedoorn's team has been working on the building for a year now and is expected to be finished in September. The exterior facades are finished, now it's the turn of the inside of the building. "You never know what you will encounter, because you always come across surprises in such an old building. In addition, the challenge is to get and keep the building at a certain level of quality. We are using very high-quality products here in collaboration with paint consultant C. van Egmond of Wijzonol, so that the building also stays looking neat as a conference center."