‘Runner’ regains its original sparkle

 November 2003 – The large-scale cleaning project on which the city of Athens has embarked in the run-up to the Olympic Games is now set to include several nineteenth and twentieth century monuments. This restorative cleaning work is being undertaken by German industrial concern Kärcher in cooperation with the non-profit organisation Ellada Kathari as part of a cultural sponsorship programme. First to benefit is Greek sculptor Costas Varotsos’s The Runner, which stands on a busy square in the centre of Athens.

Completed in 1988, this original sculpture is made up of plates of glass. Its surface is covered in a layer of black, very stubborn dirt composed of soot, oily substances and powdered lime. Caused mainly by vehicle emissions, it resists attempts at cleaning by conventional methods, especially since the sharp-edged, fragile glass plates require no-touch cleaning without the use of brushes or cloths.

 However, after two weeks of tests in the Kärcher development centre laboratory, a method that produces a very good cleaning result was found.

Kärcher has realized some 80 cleaning projects on historic monuments in the last 16 years. In 1990, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro were subjected to gentle, expert cleaning. The largest-scale facade-cleaning operation on a work of architecture was performed in 1998 when Kärcher cleaned the colonnades on St Peter’s Square in Rome. Last year, Kärcher experts under the guidance of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo removed harmful dirt layers from the Colossi of Memnon in Luxor, Upper Egypt, which are more than 3,300 years old. Next spring, Kärcher will clean the group of figures on Victoria Square depicting Theseus’s rescue of Hippodamia, as well as another Athens monument.

Alfred Kärcher GmbH & Co. KG is a family firm based in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, that specialises in developing, producing and marketing cleaning technology. Its product portfolio includes high-pressure cleaners, blasting systems, vacuum cleaners, sweepers and scrubbers, as well as cleaning agents, vehicle washes, drinking water and waste water technology. The company employs more than 5,500 staff in 34 countries and posted sales of more than nzd 1 billion last year.