Peter-Parler-Award 2009

This year, with the palmary restoration of the tower of the St. Peter"s Church in Leipzig the Bennert Restaurierungen GmbH applied for the Peter Paler Price, the most famous competition at the craft of stone dressers for the first time.

Awarded by the German Foundation for Conservation of Ancient Monuments, the Federal Trade Guild Association and the Ebner Publishing House Ulm, top quality workings on monumental, natural-stone-made, objects have land a prize. Important aspects for the appraisal of the submitted workings were preservation, technical restoration, creativity and the sense of material. The winners were chosen at the Stone+tec, the international trade fair for natural stone and its restoration in Nuremberg, on 21st May 2009. Also Stefan Haustein, the executive director of Bennert Restaurierungen GmbH, was invited to the award ceremony. In this year, we have not yet been the leading laureate in the competition for the most famous prize of the branch, however, praise at our first participation fulfils us with great pride and we are very much encouraged about the public appreciation of our work.

At the neo-Gothic tower of the St. Peter"s Church in Leipzig we accomplished stone restoration and reconstruction operations in considerable extent. The reconstruction was performed, the first step in 2005, by the complete reconstruction of the spire and the restoration of the ashlars. For each stone damaging reports were made, followed by their individual restoration. For the new components alone we hewed and dislocated 120 m² of sandstone. The completion of the restoration by reconstructing the tower shaft was in 2007.

We also feel constrained to the idea of this competition, to call the general public"s attention to the fact that stone dressers go towards the maintenance of cultural assets. In two years we will compete with one of our extraordinary projects again and hopefully come off as winner.