Paris's Cirque d'Hiver begins renovation to restore its original splendour

Twenty ornamental frescoes from the Second Empire are to be restored over twelve to eighteen months. The seating, the polychrome ceiling canvas and the stained-glass windows will also be refurbished. Almost 200 years after it first opened in 1852, the Cirque d'Hiver, the famous Parisian performance venue, has just embarked on renovation work aimed at restoring its original splendour. The project began this week with the restoration of around twenty ornamental frescoes dating from the Second Empire and located above the seating. They form a kind of historical timeline of the relationship between humans and horses, with equestrian sports having long been Parisians' favourite spectacle. "We move forward in stages: we take everything down, we inspect the site, we carry out a kind of assessment, both of its condition in terms of safety and of its overall state: is it damaged, badly damaged, salvageable, beyond repair", explains Stéphane Millet, the architect and engineer in charge of renovating the Cirque d'Hiver. Maximum precautions "The key, and the most difficult part, is taking it down. Why? Because the canvas has acquired a certain stiffness", he continues. "It has quite significant distortions caused by the fact that just above it, as I was saying, there are windows, so there have been leaks, uncontrolled condensation that has run down and damaged the work." With his team, he will cover the frescoes with a protective film designed to soften the canvases. Easy to remove and harmless to the works, according to the architect, this device will allow them to be lowered in a single piece along the seating. "And then, of course, we will send them to restoration workshops, where the protective film will be removed and a restoration process will begin that is extremely complex, because we are discovering, for example, that touch-ups have already been carried out", says Stéphane Millet. A full restoration The restoration, expected to last between twelve and eighteen months, should bring back an image that is almost 100% faithful, the architect insists. Work will then move on to refurbishing the seating and reinstalling stained glass in the openings above the frescoes, in order to restore its "original lustre". The polychrome canvas that covered the ceiling will also be renovated so that it regains its original appearance. But this part of the work is expected to extend over six to seven years and to take place in the summer so as not to disrupt the Cirque's programme. Costing an estimated several million euros, the project, launched by the Bouglione family, who have owned the Cirque d'Hiver for nearly 100 years, has the support of the Regional Directorate for Cultural Affairs and the Île-de-France regional authority.