World wonder cost far less than city courthouse

THE Amber Room, Katherine Palace, St Petersburg in Russia was commissioned by Frederick I of Prussia in 1701, and was presented later to Czar Peter the Great.

Considered one of the greatest of Europe’s missing treasures, the Amber Room – often described as the eighth wonder of the world – is currently valued at about $250 million.

It consisted of 100,000 pieces of carved amber panelling covering the walls of the room.

In 1941, when Nazi troops were approaching Leningrad, hasty preparations were made to evacuate the most precious exhibits to a safer place. But the Amber Room was too fragile, so a decision was made to hide it under double walls with paintings of low value over them. When the German troops occupied the Katherine Palace, the trick was disclosed. They dismantled the Amber Room and shipped it to Kenigsberg in east Prussia – now the Russian port city of Kaliningrad. All traces of the Amber Room then vanished. After almost 50 years the Russian government gave up all hope of relocating the panels and initiated the reconstruction of the Amber Room. Two fragments of the chamber were discovered in Germany in 2000: a Florentine mosaic and a chest of drawers.

Germany returned them to Russia. Highly skilled craftspeople worked tirelessly on the project, using microscopes to make the tiniest engravings in the amber.

Amber is the fossilised resin of now-extinct trees and 1 kg of top-quality amber costs about $250 on world markets. The restoration work consumed six tonnes of amber. Every metre of this immense work of art is made up of between 800 to 1,000 pieces of amber.

The replica of the Amber Room was unveiled in 2003 in time for St Petersburg’s 300th anniversary celebrations. Total cost: $11m (approximately‚ €7.9m). Total cost of Cork Courthouse refurbishment: $35m (€26m). The refurbishment of Cork Courthouse began in April 2003. The project took 20 months to complete and the courthouse was reopened in 2005.

The original estimate for the work in 1995 was €6.35m. Eventual cost: €26m.

The cost overrun was explained as follows by the Central Statistics Office (CSO): “Construction inflation between 1995 and 2003 amounted to a 60% increase which increased the figure to €10.16m. The balance (€15.84m) was made up by the cost of the design team, site investigations, furniture, fittings and equipment, contingency, etc,”

The CSO says the Irish inflation rate over this period totalled 30%.

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