The contractors charged with renovating the halls have begun their inventories, investigations and research to determine which restoration work is most required. Final opinions are to be given in February.

The ceiling consists of a plastercoat on lathing* reinforced with thin coffering boards. The laths and boards are nailed to the joists. Joists are solid horizontal timbers supporting a floor. They in turn are supported by beams or projections from the walls. The wooden decorative elements made from fir are light and fragile. They were fixed to the finished plaster ceiling.

The soundness of the ceiling will be checked using a borescope (with a small camera) or from the floor above when service networks (power, telephone, etc.) are installed.

The integrity of the stuck (i.e. nailed) decorative wooden items will be strengthened by screw-fixing.



The general deformation of the building has opened up cracks in certain decorative elements on the ceiling. These cracks will be left open where they are between separate elements of decoration. Otherwise they will be plugged with “dutchmen” made from lime wood (from the lime tree, also known in America as linden or basswood). Dutchmen are thin strips of wood more commonly fitted into splits or cracks in parquet flooring or wall panelling to fill the gap. Here they will be fitted in the direction of the wood grain. They will be slightly recessed to allow a paint undercoat to be applied.

The cracks left open will be touched up with an aquarelled colouring to attenuate their current dark tones.

Most of the decoration is "stuck" (i.e. nailed) carton-pierre, a form of papier-mâché made to imitate stone, used for the mouldings and decorative elements on the ceilings. It consists of a mixture of boiled tissue paper, rabbit-skin glue poured on hot, and chalk. Before it dries it becomes a thick, mouldable paste. The technique was replaced by fibrous plaster at the end of the 19^th century.


Part of the cornice is treated plaster, especially the cymatium of the corona and the modillions. A corona is the projecting moulding of a cornice or any other entablature element which has a drip moulding. A cymatium is the crowning moulding of a corona-type cornice. Modillions are small, flat bracket supports at regular intervals beneath the coronas of cornices. Modillions have an essentially decorative function.






The rinceaux (foliated scrolls) of the frieze (the panel beneath the cornice) are carton-pierre "stuck" (i.e. nailed) to the plaster background. Some carton-pierre decorative elements are fixed to wooden mouldings themselves nailed to the ceiling.