Georg-Weerth-Oberschule construction project completed
2.5 million euro investment in this partial refurbishment
After 16 months of construction, the city has now completed the refurbishment of the Georg Weerth Secondary School. The construction fences were dismantled today. Pupils and teachers have put up with noise, dust and restrictions, such as the partially closed schoolyard, during the reconstruction phase. They now want to celebrate the modernisation of their educational facility tomorrow with an "Open Day".
At the end of November last year, many of the construction tarpaulins that had covered the façade of the secondary school since April 2014 had already been removed. With its fresh beige plaster and reddish-yellow window sills, the monumental Wilhelminian-style school building now catches the eye of passers-by.
The city has modernised the interior of the former Körnerschule building in recent months, as construction companies had only carried out major repairs there in 1989/90.
The current partial refurbishment cost 2.5 million euros. Sanitary facilities, heating, the roof and above all the façade are all part of the school building's facelift.
The construction work was carried out without interrupting school operations.
In 2012, many Sonnenberg residents voted in favour of structural repairs to the Georg Weerth Secondary School building in an online referendum on participatory budgeting. The sanitary facilities were dilapidated, a stench was coming out of the drainpipes and the tiles were broken. The heating could not be adjusted to the outside temperature either, not to mention the façade, which stood out from the surrounding renovated buildings. The plaster had fallen off large areas of the monumental building, so that plasterers now had to remove it completely.
Three different layers of plaster were applied, a requirement not only for monument protection but also for building physics: in this way, cracks can be avoided in future. The material of the cornices, window and door jambs also presented the companies with challenges: This is because the Hilbersdorf porphyry used in the construction of the Körnerschule has not been quarried for a long time. It was therefore often difficult to find this building material.
All 224 windows and seven doors have been given such new or supplemented masonry surrounds. Dozens of wall openings were also spanned with a segmental arch lintel using a sophisticated craftsman's technique in keeping with the preservation order. In the meantime, roofers had covered the roof with anthracite-coloured aluminium to make it weatherproof again. Last autumn and winter, teachers and pupils learned to appreciate the benefits of the new heating system.