architectural wood conservation and repair

step by step wood restoration, pure and simple?

Dr. Marjorie Hunt - preserving the building crafts

faux pas

The William Penn fireplace is located in the Speaker Matthew J. Ryan Building (or Annex) at the Pennsylvania State Capital. The grandest fireplace in the 1894 building, it is located in what was originally the Governor's ceremonial reception room. Designed by architect John Windrin, the elliptical room is reached via a grand staircase bordered by ochre colored scagliola paneled wainscoting and walls. The focal point is the intricately carved mahogany fireplace that takes its name from a bas-relief bust of William Penn that is part of the carved decoration.

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Restoring the rest of the woodwork at the PA capital was classified as a restoration project, not conservation like the Penn fireplace had been. The intent of the restoration was to restore the wood to the way it looked on the day the building opened. The following labor-intensive wood restoration techniques have been used for years and actually mirror to a large degree the original techniques used over 100 years ago.

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Thistle Award winner Marjorie Hunt is a folklorist and curator with the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She received her Ph.D. in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. Her extensive research and work in the building arts includes her recent book The Stone Carvers, published by Smithsonian Institution Press, and her Academy- and Emmy-Award-winning documentary film "The Stone Carvers," both of which document and present the life and work of Italian-American master carvers at Washington National Cathedral.

Dr. Hunt served as the curator and project director of the "Masters of the Building Arts" program at the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall. A major living exhibition, it celebrated the "extraordinary skill and artistry of craftworkers in the building trades and highlighted and explored their important contributions to our nation's architectural heritage."

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There is an old story that was making the rounds of the decoration trades over 40 years ago in Scotland. It concerns the Victorian equivalent of today's office "cubbies." At the turn of the century, offices were divided with partitions made of wood paneling on the bottom and glass on the top. Over the years, the glass panels were often painted with a woodgrain pattern to match the bottom panels to help create more privacy for the occupants. It seems that more than once, unwitting cubby dwellers attempted to drive a hook or nail into the upper panels thus shattering the "wood". Ooops...