Dutch first concrete restoration certificate for Mourik subsidiary Vogel

This puts the subsidiary of technical services provider Mourik in the best position to preserve cultural-historical monuments made of concrete for the future. Vogel has already restored many monuments including Radio Kootwijk, building De Zonnestraal and the facially significant KBC tower in Antwerp, popularly called Farmer's Tower.

'We see concrete as a modern building material. We don't easily associate it with old buildings like the Dom tower or Amsterdam canal houses. Yet the first concrete buildings are more than a hundred years old, so they are young monuments,' says Patrick Karremans, Vogel's business manager.

Severely affected

'We see many buildings whose concrete is severely deteriorated. To restore them, you need specific knowledge of concrete and the experience to determine which method works best to solve a specific problem. Many of those methods we have developed ourselves over the 120-plus years of our existence. We are a bit of a monument ourselves. Not for nothing are we the market leader and apply state-of-the-art technologies to save concrete monuments from destruction.'

It concerns the certificate 'Maintenance and restoration of monuments'. This process certificate has been issued on the basis of the assessment guideline ERM 4000 and URL 4005 by SGS Intron. SGS is world leader in the field of inspection, control, analysis and certification. The certificate describes the process for the restoration of historic concrete in monuments, for both concrete building components, and concrete without value or concrete that does not need to be preserved.

Karremans: "This certificate recognizes that Vogel focuses on quality in maintenance, restoration and preservation of monuments and assures people of specialist knowledge and expertise in the care of monuments. Governments such as the State, Province and municipalities are thus assured that we safeguard the cultural-historical value of their characteristic buildings and sight-defining monuments.

For more information about Vogel, click here.