Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland

   At the Cleveland Museum of Art, the operation included a good cleaning and repair of the structure’s Georgia marble façade, as well as a total renovation of the surrounding terraces to meet current accessibility requirements.
   Now, as this beauty moves toward the end of her ninth decade, those involved are confident the structure will easily double its current lifespan before the experts again need to ply their skills.
   The decision to restore the original 1916 building and its associated terraces and balustrade came as the result of a master plan the museum adopted in 1999, says Randall Von Ryan, the museum’s director of museum planning and construction administration.
   The plan also calls for the expansion and renovation of the museum, which is being planned by Rafael Vinoly Architects of New York to meet the museum’s contemporary needs.
   Von Ryan describes the structure as neoclassical in design, with a façade of Georgia White marble on a base of Georgia Cherokee marble also used to define the surrounding terraces.
   The terraces, approximately 12,000 ft², were designed as a series of “rooms” in the style of an English garden with places for people to walk and sit while enjoying the outdoors, landscaping and sculptures from the museum’s collection.
   “In 1999, the walls were actually starting to tip over and in disrepair due to a lack of consistent preventative maintenance and 85 years of Cleveland weather and environmental conditions,” Von Ryan says of the terraces. “Many of the walls had been braced using 4 X 4 timbers, but the movement still continued.”
   To carry out the first two phases of the master plan, the museum hired the Philadelphia-based architectural firm Vitetta, which specializes in preservation and experienced in museum work. Hyman Myers, the firm’s chief restoration architect, says the 1916 structure is a very important one for Cleveland.
   “It relates to what is called the University Circle area and its Wade Park in a major way,” he says. “Wade Park is a beautifully designed park in the University Circle area, around which a number of major cultural buildings exist.”
   Additionally, Myers says the building and its setting at the north end of the major north-south axis of Wade Lagoon was inspired by the planning ideals of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
   The first phase of the project – cleaning the historic building and restoring the façades, including the marble and bronzework, as well as inspecting the foundation – went quite well, says Myers. The contract for the work was awarded to the Pittsburgh-based Graciano Corp., which specializes in restorations of this type.
   David Sinclair, the project manager for Graciano, says the two concerns his company had with that phase of the job were finding a safe and effective cleaning method for the exterior marble, and then matching the replacement pieces that were required.
   “We went through a sample process where we tried a number of different cleaning systems and processes,” he says. “We then had the samples analyzed to make sure with the chemicals that when we were done there wasn’t any caustic material left on the stone, or any acidic material left.”
   Myers says the goal was to find the least aggressive way of cleaning the structure with a goal of producing a good result, rather than a perfect one.
   Ultimately, the company went with a commercially available product from PROSOCO Inc., and then employed 15-20 people onsite for overall cleaning and replacing damaged cornices.
   Matching the stone – as much as possible – was made somewhat easier by the fact that Georgia Marble of Tate, Ga., had provided the original stone for the project. Georgia Marble’s Patrick Perus says the task was made even easier by the consistency of the company’s marble deposits.
   “Typically a deposit changes over time, but Georgia marble is quite consistent,” he says. “It’s really one massive deposit, so it matches quite well.”
   Once the marble was quarried, Georgia Marble also had the responsibility of fabricating the sometimes-intricate replacement pieces for the façade.
   ”It was a complex job,” Perus says. “The architect was very particular on the molding and detail work. It was really like working on a piece of art.”
   Fortunately for both these phases, the architects were able to have access to the original drawings for the 1916 structure.
   “We were able to work with Mr. Von Ryan on researching the original drawings and a lot of 1916 original photos,” says Vitetta’s Myers. “Good research is critical in historic buildings to make them look right.”
   While the foundation of the original building turned out to be sound – thanks to a waterproof parging that included slag from local steel mills — the same couldn’t be said for the foundation of the existing terraces. Myers concurs with the Von Ryan that the terraces were in rough shape.
   “We found that the terrace walls and balustrades had not been constructed very well and over the course of almost 90 years they’d begun to push out and fall over,” Myers says. “They had propped them up with wooden shores, and most of the shores were concealed behind hedges. You couldn’t see many shores, but if you took one away, the walls would have fallen over.”
   In further researching the problem, it was found that the terrace areas had either no drainage or were ineffectively designed. Water would gather in one corner and seep out slowly, undermining the existing walls.
   Ultimately, the designers came up with a new drainage system to eliminate that problem, although Myers says it became a complicated portion of the project’s second phase.
   “We came up with a design to put in new foundation walls that would take apart all the different pieces and then reuse the existing marble as much as possible,” he says. “Some of it we couldn’t save, but we were able to keep most of the balustrades.
   “Probably 10 percent to 15 percent of the project involved new material, but it was mixed in so there aren’t any big displays of new ones versus old ones.”
   However, the existing terraces simply couldn’t be taken apart and put back together because of the museum’s desire to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
   “We wanted to design something that would be compatible with the old building but wouldn’t exactly recreate the original design,” Myers says. “That involved steps and gravel paths, both of which are not handicapped-accessible. The idea was to make the terraces accessible and make them look like the building had always had them in that form.”
   To oversee the terrace and balustrade phase of the project, Jance Construction of Mentor, Ohio, was hired as the general contractor. To handle the stonework, Jance brought in Cleveland-based Scotstone Inc.
   William “Scotty” Cruickshank, Scotstone’s president, says he was particularly interested in doing the job because it was a one-of-a-kind restoration.
   “I’ve done a lot of restoration work and we used to build like this when I was a kid back in Scotland,” he says. “More importantly, it’s just exciting when you’re doing things like this and you run into the fantastic work the masons did 90 years ago.”
   Still, the quality of work done on the original construction proved to be a problem when it came time to remove the existing stone, Cruickshank says.
   “I couldn’t believe they could mix mud like that,” he says. “It was amazing. We had to chip out or bust out every piece of stone, and instead of doing it with finesse – the chisels and the saws – we had to have jackhammers to break the brick so we could get to the stone.”
   Fortunately, he says cleaning up the old mortar and brick was made considerably easier by diamond grinders, and the existing bed was removed without affecting the face of the stone.
   Both Jance’s project manager, Len Verdell, and Scotstone’s project manager, Peter Popovic, say storing the old marble until the new foundations were in place was also daunting.
   “It was extremely difficult because you had to match-mark each piece and apply a piece number, then put the piece numbers on the drawings and store them in such a way that you could find everything,” says Verdell. “Of course, the architects wanted to put the pieces that were in better shape in more visible areas.”
   Popovic gives credit to the availability of the original shop drawings, the owner’s catalog and inventory plan, and the fenced-in construction area providing enough room to safely store each numbered pallet through an entire winter. Some of the stone needed to be stored for almost 18 months before the areas were ready for them again.
   As with the building’s façade, for the replacement stones for the terrace and balustrade the contractors relied on Georgia Marble, which originally supplied the Georgia Cherokee marble used in the terrace area.
   “It was almost like a new job,” says Georgia Marble’s Perus. “I think we delivered the last stone just a week before they set up the champagne on the terrace.”
   Vitetta’s Myers says both with the building and the terrace project, Georgia Marble was required to fabricate to the original specifications used when the building was constructed.
   “We used full-depth materials that haven’t really been used since the early part of the last century,” Myers says. “The outside of the building was done with solid cornice materials. All the balusters were made of solid materials. None of it was veneer; all of it was hugely heavy.”
   However, Georgia Marble wasn’t the only company cutting marble for the project. Due to changes in construction methods, Scotstone found itself resizing pieces at the site.
   “We ended up shaving everything down to six inches,” says Popovic. “Some of it was deeper so it could go into the original masonry structure. However, when the foundation was replaced with reinforced concrete, it only required a 6” depth. We set up a sawing operation onsite with a wall saw with a 36” diameter blade that we mounted horizontally.”
   Nor was marble the only stone used in the reconstruction of the terraces. To replace the original gravel paths with something compatible with ADA standards, the architects opted to use bluestone for what Myers calls, “the field areas” of the terraces.
   “It seemed to go very well with the marble, and it offers a good tread surface for walking,” he says. “The bluestone was also chosen because it was similar to the gravel that had been there originally. It looks quite beautiful and very soothing.”
   Johnston and Rhodes Bluestone of East Branch, N.Y., became the bluestone supplier for the project. Peter Johnston Jr. explains that he had originally bid the job through another stone subcontractor; when that firm wasn’t chosen for the job, he contacted Scotstone directly.
   He agrees with Myers about the attributes of the company’s Elk Brook bluestone.
   “It has a consistent blue-gray color, it’s relatively subdued and it’s very durable,” he says. “It also has good slip-resistance, which is why a lot of people use it for projects like this.”
   In the case of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Johnston said it took almost a year from planning stages to completing the fabrication and shipping that part of the project.
   “As Scotstone needed the material, we provided it,” he says. “They did tickets dictating the sizes they required, and we cut everything to size depending on what pattern they were using.”
   Ultimately, Popovic says it took Scotstone almost two years to disassemble and reassemble the project, utilizing as many as 20 masons and laborers on the site. The final step – cleaning the old marble after it had been put back in place – was done by pre-wetting the surfaces with water and then using two applications of a commercial cleaning solution.
   Because the goal of the cleaning process was to achieve a good result, rather than a perfect one, there is some visible difference between the 1916 marble and its replacement.
   “It’s the same marble, but it doesn’t have the weathering,” says Graciano’s Sinclair. “But, all they asked is that we clean the existing building so it would blend in.”
The museum’s Von Ryan believes the contractors did a great job on getting the building restored to an appearance worthy of its landmark status in the city of Cleveland. He says that the beauty of the original museum building is that it shows its age well now as compared to before, and it anchors the north end of Wade Park as majestically as it did in 1916.
   The public has definitely noticed the difference, he says.
   “In restoring the building and terraces we realized the new stone would look new,” Von Ryan says. “However, it was felt that using the original stone and letting it age gracefully like the original material was the best approach. Even now, after some weathering, the pieces are starting to blend in.”
   Everyone involved with the project feels the project was quite successful and they’re very pleased with the end results
   “This was a great project,” Von Ryan concludes. “The designers, local contractors and the museum formed a great team. The talent, expertise and excitement of all involved made this a once-in-a-lifetime project.”
   “When we walked away from it and I looked back, the thing that really impressed me was that it didn’t look like we did anything,” says Scotstone’s Cruickshank. “For a job like this, that’s the best thing you can do. It’s the kind of job almost all masons like to get involved in.”
   “The people in Cleveland are really happy,” Vitteta’s Myers says. “This was a job that involved a good combination of a sophisticated and knowledgeable client, an architect like us who has experience with old buildings, and contractors skilled enough to do the work.  We like to think that if the original architects could come back to the site, they’d think the job was almost their own.”
   Gregg Wallis of Communicators International contributed to this report.

Client: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Architect/Designer: Vitetta, Philadelphia
General Contractors: Graciano Corp., Pittsburgh; Jance Construction, Mentor, Ohio.
Stone Suppliers:  Georgia Marble, Tate, Ga.; Johnston and Rhodes Bluestone, East Branch, N.Y.
Stone Subcontractor:  Scotstone Inc., Cleveland

This article first appeared in the April 2004 print edition of Stone Business. ©2004 Western Business Media Inc.