Geneva, Thursday August 24, 2023 - Following last weekend's fire, one of the solutions devised by engineers and architects to secure the metal structures of the Plaza roof is now being implemented. A 30-metre crane tower will be placed horizontally on two reinforced turrets to form a superstructure from which the six aluminium beams supporting the cinema's roof will then be suspended.

As soon as the fire had been brought under control by the SIS fire department, architects, engineers and contractors worked tirelessly since Sunday to devise various solutions for the emergency securing of the historic listed cinema.

With the roof in a very fragile state, a rope-access company initially pulled access lines between neighbouring buildings to allow specialist technicians to work from above to clear the aluminium beams from the debris and assess the extent of the damage.

The investigations carried out, supplemented by a detailed examination of the cinema's interior using drones, confirmed that the damage was certainly very extensive, but less dramatic than initially feared: two of the load-bearing beams were intact, two were seriously damaged and two required urgent attention. The two most vulnerable beams have already been shored up by the rope-access technicians. This positive state of affairs is certainly due to the efficiency of the fire-fighting teams who intervened on Saturday.

In addition, removal of possible contaminants including lead paint and asbestos had already been completed last May. However, in order to be certain, waste and debris collected from the building site following the fire was analysed in a laboratory at the beginning of the week, and it was confirmed that there were no longer any toxic substances in the debris.

More extensive safety work is now underway, and is expected to last until Friday evening. Installation of the superstructure requires the transport of a 30-metre crane tower, which will serve as a load-bearing beam for the entire structure until its final renovation. For this purpose, rue du Cendrier will be closed to traffic from rue de Chantepoulet. This closure will last from 2 p.m. today until midnight on Friday, August 25. We would like to thank all our neighbors and users for their understanding of the inconvenience caused by this work.

Finally, the Plaza Foundation would like to thank all the teams of architects, engineers and contractors for their mobilization at this time of crisis. The successful completion of this emergency safety work comes as an initial relief. Other phases of critical work will be carried out over the coming weeks, but this decisive stage in securing the building means that we can now look forward to the Plaza's rebirth with even greater confidence.

The Plaza Foundation

Photo © Le Plaza 2023, Nicolas Lieber