Photo: Kristýna Maková, Praha křížem krážem
Conservationists have applied a special protective paint on one of the Gothic towers on Prague’s Charles Bridge, the city’s most famous landmark. The transparent nano-coating can decompose algae and mosses with the help of light alone, keeping the stone walls clean and protected.
The entrance to Prague’s famous Charles Bridge is guarded on both sides by monumental Gothic towers. The taller one of them, known as the Lesser Town Bridge Tower, has been regularly overgrown with mosses and lichen, making its sandstone walls look green rather than beige.
Thanks to modern technologies, experts may have found a solution to the problem. A few months ago, they scraped the walls clean and painted them over with a special coating of transparent nano-paint with self-cleaning properties. So far, it seems to have done the trick, says Karel Kučera, from Prague City Museum:
“There was quite a lot of green growth in the form of cyanobacteria, algae and lichens on both of the tower’s galleries. Occasionally you can still see a trace of lichen. It’s a very indomitable organism and it creates sort of a green map on the stone, but otherwise it’s stable, and nothing new has appeared.”
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Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Tereza Janouškovcová