The historic colonial-style Raffles Hotel in Singapore was completely renovated a few years ago. The building glows again in the finest white with mineral facade paints from KEIM, specially formulated for the tropical climate.
Architectural History
Singapore has a varied and fascinating architectural heritage with state-of-the-art modern buildings mixed with historical colonial-era heritage. The city administration has a specific focus on the typical colonial style, including The Raffles Hotel. In 1887, the hotel was just a two-floor building with 10 rooms. In the following years, it has been enlarged and turned into a luxurious building. Since 1987, it has been a designated national monument.
Renovation Work
A two-year renovation with a focus on the historic substance in combination with the demands and requirements of today’s travelers was already carried out in 1989. That project modernized the 115 hotel suites and the renovation of the filigree delicate façade. During the latest renovation work, the façades facing the street and the façades surrounding a large patio needed to again glow in the typical and of course long-lasting white coating of the colonial construction style. A search for the corresponding paint coating led the planners to KEIM’s portfolio including KEIM Royalan a mineral paint that is optimized for tropical weather conditions.
Mineral Paint Application
For the first step, numerous test areas were coated by the applicators in April 2018 in order to determine the exact white tone under true lighting conditions. Large-scale renovation work began two months later with the complete removal of the many existing coatings down to the substrate with the biodegradable KEIMDispersionsentferner (paint stripper) followed by the new two-coat finish with KEIMRoyalan. The work lasted for an entire year. Finally, in June 2019, the scaffoldings were removed.
KEIM Products Used
KEIM Royalan-Paint, prepared with KEIM Dispersionsentferner (paint stripper)
