Ceramic Historic Presrvation
While I lived in New Mexico I got the opportunity to do a significant historic preservation project on the New Mexico Title Building in downtown Albuquerque. The building had been built in the 1920s with a ceramic steel structure with an ornate ceramic facade attached to the steel. Like many ceramic buildings it needed maintencance that during the depression and the second world war was often overlooked resulting in water intrusion which after many freeze thaw cycles eventually damaged vulnerable parts. I replaced a large number of capitals, quatrefoils and finials. They were all originally made in molds with some applique layers of clay added. Not having access to the original molds we had to work from remaining pieces, enlarging our clay originals by 9.5% to allow for the firing shrinkage of the clay body we used. Helped by a couple of my talented students, over a summer vacation, we then made molds from these, found a matching glaze and fired them all. We then worked with a really experienced tile and masonry contractor to set all the replacement pieces. He was the fourth generation of a family of Sicialian American tile and masonry contractors and helped us have a great result. The capitals sit atop the columns, the quatrefolis are the openings above them and the finails sit atop the parapet on the top of the building.