Stained glass, a ruby star and faux marble: the Grain Pavilion is being restored at VDNKh

The restoration effort at Pavilion No. 59 (Grain, former Moscow Region) is currently at full steam. The restored building will become the Polytechnic Museum’s centerpiece. The visitors will be offered multimedia exhibitions and quests, education and social programs. The projects are supposed to be replaced at least every other year.

Mos.ru takes a look at the restoration of one of the tallest VDNKh buildings, when its façades will be revealed to the visitors, and how its interiors will look after the restoration is complete.

The weather issues

Pavilion No. 59, Grain, is located near the Stone Flower fountain and Pavilion No. 58, Farming. The pavilion in the Stalin Empire style was built in 1939 and rebuilt in 1954. Both projects were designed by Dmitry Chechulin (the architect who also designed the Peking Hotel and the high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment).

In 1959, the pavilion got the name “Moscow region”, but after the VDNKh restructuring following the industry principle, it was renamed into “Grain”. As easily follows from that name, back in those days it used to house various grain crops-related events.

Grain pavilion is a federal cultural heritage site. However, it would be hard right now to admire its façade bas-reliefs, sculptures adorning its cornice, or its stained glass windows, because the entire building is covered in scaffolding. Despite weather being an issue, the contractors promise to finish the restoration works on time.

Restoration artists are planning to restore the ornaments, clean the old paint off the architectural elements and reconstruct the parts of the pavilion that have been lost. Metal roof railings and pavilion tower levels are also supposed to be restored.

A ruby star and stained glass windows

Grain is the third tallest pavilion at VDNKh (after the Space and Central pavilions). A gilded spire with a five-point star on top crowns its tower. The Star used to be made of ruby-colored glass. Small shards in the attic are all that’s left of it now. However, the star is about to be reborn. On top on restoring the glass, they plan to install lighting there during the restoration.

The gilding is relatively well-preserved, as for how restorable it is, we better leave the matter for the specialist restoration artists that have to study the layer first. After the assessment is done, they will develop the process and get on with restoring.

The roof over the main pavilion entrance is decorated with two statuaries: male and female, holding coats of arms that depict the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin and one of the Moscow high-rises. Right now, old paint layers are being carefully peeled off them. According to restoration artists, the statuaries are not in a good shape. There’s a solution, however.

“We can’t disassemble the statues right now, because they’re in perilous state. We decided to put them into their intended shape on site, strengthen them, make casts, and only then disassemble them. That will give us extra insurance in case some of them are destroyed. The rest will be done in the shop,” explains Timur Ivantsyk.

Pinnacles (small towers), pommels and other decorations are installed along the roof perimeter. Some of them have also been destroyed, so they are going to restore them based on models.

Unlike other elements, stained glass windows taking up the majority of the façade are in a good shape. All the windows in the exhibition halls are stained glass. They are well-preserved; some broken ones will be glued together and kept.

“We’re aiming for maximum preservation now. We use soft agents for cleaning the ornaments, repair or restore the damaged components, then put them back,” Mr. Abdurakhmanov says.

Visitors will have a chance to see the restored façade as soon as the start of the next summer season.

Concrete dust and the sky on the ceiling

The concrete dust that construction works produce rises up to the ceiling. In that fog, the sounds of metal welding are heard: over 60 people work in the pavilion every day.

The Grain pavilion has four halls: the entrance hall, the Moscow region hall, the Ryazan and Tula regions hall, and another one, for Kaluga and Bryansk regions. Each of them is decorated with faux marble of different colors: red, green, ebony and off-yellow. Restoration artists are already working on the decorations, cleaning them of old paint layers. The lost hardwood floors will also be recreated.

Because of the work going on inside, it’s now impossible to see how the historical interiors will look: we can only imagine them based on archive photographs. That’s what the restoration artists will be doing, too: they’re going to restore the original 1950s brass and bronze chandeliers. The contractors have already found the companies that can do that.

One of the main features of the pavilion’s interior decorations is not the multi-colored marble or original chandeliers, but amazing ceiling paintings imitating the open sky.

“The plasterwork on the entrance hall ceiling was painted. The painting has a 3d effect, so instead of a smooth ceiling, there’s the sky over our heads with lots of open air. Numerous water leaks have damaged the painting, so now our restoration artists are busy getting permissions for extra surveys and strengthening tests,” Mr. Abdurakhmanov explains.

They will do mycology tests, study the paint composition and run pilot cleaning and strengthening works. Then, if possible, they will start restoring or recreating the painting.

The full pavilion restoration is scheduled to be finished in 2023.