THE onion-domed Russian Orthodox Mission Cathedral on Xinle Road, built in 1936, was reduced after the “cultural revolution” to being used as a warehouse, a stock brokerage, a nightclub and later a restaurant. Its rich wall paintings disappeared... or so it seemed for decades.

It wasn’t until 2007, when Shen Sanxin, chief engineer of Shanghai Zhuzong Group Construction & Development Co, began reconstruction of the church that the intricate, ornate beauty of the lost murals began to re-emerge.

At a recent forum, Shen discussed how layers of paint were carefully removed to reveal nine wall paintings.

“The church is one of the most brilliant pieces in our city‘s modern architectural history, as well as an important monument of the development of the Chinese Orthodox Church,” said Shen.

The history of the church in China dates back to 1901, when the Qing Dynasty allowed a small Russian community in China to build Orthodox churches. Over time, 13 such churches sprang up in Shanghai, but only the Russian Orthodox Mission Cathedral and Saint Nicholas Church survive.

The 1917 Russian Revolution caused a flood of anti-Bolshevik White Russians to flee to China. Many settled in Shanghai, swelling the congregations of Orthodox churches.

One of the churches, located in Zhabei, was destroyed in 1932 during a brief outbreak of hostilities between Chinese and Japanese soldiers, five years before the China’s War against Japanese Aggression broke out nationwide.

The Russian community built a temporary church on Xinle Road in the Xuhui District. In 1933, that structure was demolished and replaced by the Russian Orthodox Mission Cathedral.

In the vast sweep of Chinese history, buildings constructed in the 1930s are categorized as “modern,” but that doesn’t make them any less worthy of preservation, Shen said.

To better protect these structures, the local Cultural Relics Preservation Research Center and Shanghai Jiao Tong University recently co-founded a committee on modern architectural preservation.

“Shanghai is a city with a long history of architectural preservation,” said Zheng Shiling, an expert on historic buildings and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “The government issued regulations on historic and cultural areas preservation in 2002, covering both modern and ancient architecture.”

Since the materials, structure and decoration of modern architecture are different from those in ancient structures, special expertise is needed, according to Professor Cao Yongkang, director of the Jiao Tong’s International Research Center for Architectural Heritage Conservation.

In the case of the Russian Orthodox Mission Cathedral, Shen said the restoration of the mural paintings is “a great event with far-reaching historical significance.”

The church suffered badly from the “cultural revolution,” when most of its icons and other religious artifacts were damaged or destroyed. Religious services ended and the building fell into a serious state of disrepair.

In 2006, the local government designated the building for restoration. Shen and his team started work a year later.

Shen said the interiors of Orthodox churches are often extravagantly decorated with ornate shrines, chancels and murals depicting saints, icons and Bible stories.

“According to some historical records, frescoes existed on the inner sides of the dome, arches and altar walls of the church,” said Shen. “When we entered the church, we didn’t see any of them. Only white walls with gray stripes.”

Local residents told Shen that the murals began fading after the church was damaged during the “cultural revolution.”

Experts said if the missing paintings could be found, they might be the only frescoes ever discovered in Shanghai.

“We carefully studied historical records and analyzed where the frescoes might be if they still existed,” said Shen. “We began our search in the dome and on the base supporting it.”

The main dome is 31 meters high, and one of the paintings in the dome is 25 meters above ground, with a diameter of eight meters.

“Our experts figured that the height of the dome was beyond the reach of anyone wanting to deface the murals,” Shen said.

Using scaffolding, Shen’s team applied water to the surface of the wall. With special tools, they shaved away layers of paint. From beneath, bits of the murals began to emerge.

Shen said a cleaning agent was used to remove the final coating. It was a difficult challenge to remove overcoats of paint without damaging the murals.

”To ensure the painting would not be affected by cleaning agents, we also used brushes of soft goat hair and a desiccant to accelerate the chemical's drying,“ Shen told Shanghai Daily.

After the cleaning, computer-enhanced historical photos were used to restore missing parts of the paintings.

Parts of the frescoes damaged by natural forces were left intact, and a protective fluid was applied to help prevent weathering in the future.

The dome fresco, done by a Russian architect and painter who designed the church, was found to resemble a fresco painting in the dome of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was destroyed in 1931.

Shen’s team failed to find frescoes in other parts of the church, though they may have existed.

It’s not clear if religious services will be allowed to resume at the Russian Orthodox Mission Cathedral or if the renovated structure will be put to some other cultural use. At present, it is closed to the public.

The cathedral is one of the lucky ones in what has sometimes been a spotty municipal record on preservation and restoration of older buildings.

The previous Shanghai Club Building — a six-story baroque revival structure on the Bund and a former men’s club for British residents in Old Shanghai — originally featured a 100-foot-long L-shaped bar of dark polished mahogany called the Long Bar. It was said to be the longest bar in the Orient in its heyday.

In 1988, however, KFC received permission to demolish the bar and turn the site into the US company’s first fast-food outlet in Shanghai.

The bar and original decor were later restored after the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund bought the rights to the building in 2009.

In 2002, city heritage preservation regulations were imposed. The city has designated more than 2,000 buildings as heritage preservation sites.

“Historical buildings are better preserved when they are being used in some proper way,” said Zheng. “Now our focus is on how to make old buildings live better.”