The Getty Foundation in Los Angeles has awarded 13 grants totaling $2,2 million to support significant modernist buildings as part its Keeping It Modern architecture conservation initiative. This year, a total of 90 projects around the globe applied. The Buzludzha Project Foundation made it to the final round of approved projects for the second year in a row under the leadership of ICOMOS Germany and the technical direction of Prof. Dr. phil. dott. Thomas Danzl of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Chair of Conservation-Restoration, Art Technology and Conservation Science.
In 2019 the same program awarded $185,000 to the Buzludzha monument for the preparation of a Conservation Management Plan, which is on track to be completed by the end of this year. So far, detailed structural and technical analyses have been conducted. These investigations revealed that it is possible to preserve the building and that the first urgent action is the stabilization of large mosaic panels on its interior walls. They are highly endangered and need urgent intervention to prevent their irreversible loss.
Following this research, Buzludzha was awarded another $60,000 for mosaics preservation and for the installation of weather protection. The activities will start in August 2020 and should be completed by October this year. Next winter, the protective effect of the measures taken can be evaluated by monitoring.
The project coordinated by the Buzludzha Project Foundation on behalf of ICOMOS Germany and under the technical direction of the TUM is carried out by a Bulgarian-German ICOMOS team, supported by mosaic and conservation experts from neighbouring European countries. The working group is composed of conservators-restorers from five European universities: National Academy of Art in Sofia, Academy of Art in Plovdiv, Technical University of Munich, Bern University of the Arts and the University of Fine Arts in Dresden, as well as the non-governmental organization Diadrasis from Athens.
The Buzludzha Monument, inaugurated in 1981 for the 1300th anniversary of Bulgaria and the 90th anniversary of the Bulgarian Communist Party, has been without function and it is state property since the political upheaval of 1989/90; it is managed by the Regional Administration of Stara Zagora. In recent years, it has attracted increasing international attention as an icon of socialist modernism and one of the most important monuments of post-war modernism in Europe. Its monumental mosaics, over 900 square metres, are among the largest modern mosaics in Europe.
The architect of the monument, Georgi Stoilov (*1929), characterizes the exceptional position of the mosaics of the Buzludzha Monument: "The best artists in Bulgaria have worked together for years. At Buzludzha we achieved full synthesis between architecture and fine arts." Fifteen recognized Bulgarian masters of art, including Ioan Leviev, Dimitar Kirov, Ivan Kirkov, Dimo Zaimov, Teofan Sokerov, and their teams have installed more than two million mosaic stones one by one. Some of the stones didn’t survive the severe weather conditions, but the protection of the existing majority is the target of this project.
Meanwhile, as part of the Conservation Management Plan, the campaign "Buzludzha’s Unwritten Stories" is running until the end of August. The purpose is to document the knowledge about the monument, to tell what its meaning was for people's lives and to create a dialogue between the generations because the conversation about the future of the building inevitably begins with a conversation about its past. Everyone is invited to join the project by telling their personal Buzludzha story.
Current press releases of the Getty Foundation are available here:
- https://bit.ly/2Otp9TC#.XxE3WcUhCqs.mailto
- https://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/current/keeping_it_modern/grants_awarded_2020.html
An info video about the project can be found at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KRSj-7guvQ&t=1s
Further information is available at:
Contact for ICOMOS Germany
Professor Dr. Jörg Haspel, President of ICOMOS Germany
Nicolaihaus, Brüderstraße 13, D-10178 Berlin, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)30 80493 100
icomos@icomos.de
www.icomos.de