REFURBISHMENT on the Qingdao Catholic Church has begun. Built in 1932, the church was put into use in 1934 and has never received any major refurbishment.

The city planned to spend 10 million yuan on the project and the construction is expected to be finished by May next year.

The project will repaint the outside of the church and repair its roof.

The most important part will be repairing the church’s interior decorations. An Italian Renaissance-styled building, the church has a lot of decorations and also murals on its ceilings.

“We will take pictures of the decorations and paintings to ensure that everything will look exactly the same as before,” said an official of the construction team.

The city invited several German experts to give advice.

“All replaced objects, whether a window pane or a piece of tile, will be specially made and look exactly the same as before,” said the official.

(Wang Yuanyuan, Zhao Jianpeng)