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21ST CENTURY RESTORATION & RENOVATION

by Sibley Fleming     Added March 19, 2009

As published in Worship Facilities, Mar/Apr 2009

For John Canning, founder of John Canning Painting & Restoration Studios based in Cheshire, Conn., 2009 will mark his 50th anniversary as a decorative painter. Canning’s studio focuses on historic restorations such as the Trinity Church in Boston, an important American building that is considered architect Henry Hobson Richardson’s first masterpiece in what would later become known as the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Techniques used in the restoration include fine art conservation, decorative painting, restoration, gilding and gold leafing, stenciling, paint study and analysis and even general contracting.

“The decorative arts arise from, and should properly be attendant upon, architecture,” Canning says in his native Scottish brogue, quoting the 1st Proposition of Owen Jones’ General Principals of Ornament. And it is the style, or period of architecture that Canning must first identify when he takes on a project. “It is imperative that this be incorporated into our decoration and restoration. We either restore the church back to the original decoration, or to a particular targeted period that is significant in the history of that church,” he says. “Decorators of the past were superb. They had brought the level of decoration to what the Victorians called ‘a state of repose’ whereby you couldn’t add to it or subtract from it.”

Restoration is still a traditional discipline, which employs the same skills and techniques that have been in use for centuries. Despite the aide of modern technology—computers for research, or machines to cut patterns, Canning maintains the process is still very much hands-on and a craft.

To keep these skills alive, the studio offers a three-year decorative painting apprenticeship. One employee is a former billboard painter, while some are artists who came to the studio to learn the discipline, which is creative as well as mechanical. Other employees in the company conduct research and analysis of decorative treatments. Dave Riccio, who is now in his second decade with the studio and apprenticed with Canning, says, “We collaborate with talented people that have actual preservation degrees or degrees in various disciplines of the preservation field. In the end, we all need to understand the traditional materials and the techniques that were used.” Riccio himself is a leading authority on decorative painting and plastering, and his work can be seen at The National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wis., among other historic landmarks.

Typically, each restoration involves four aspects:

1. Archival research: Often detailed descriptions can be found in old newspaper stories, which often covered the laying of the cornerstone. Old photographs also provide clues. An appeal is made to the congregation for old photos with historical relevance. In today’s information age, the Internet has proven to be a very useful tool as well.

2. Field research: The physical investigation of the building, such as a paint study, which is really an architectural dig through decorative history. “Exposures” are performed by surgically removing layers of paint down to the decoration of a particular period of time.

3. Scientific approach: Samples are taken and analyzed in a lab to help identify materials and composition.

4. Finally, and most importantly, thorough and thoughtful interpretation of the first three aspects.

Whether working with architects, owners or committee members on new decorative design or historic restoration and preservation, John Canning Studios executes all elements of their work in a true spirit of collaboration, maintaining their hallmark attributes: knowledge, tradition and integrity.

Uncovering a Treasure
Mezalick Studios was working in First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Pa., replacing some clear, glass panels when they were asked for an estimate to repair the Tiffany window, which had been boarded up on the outside and plastered over to make way for pipe organs. It had been more than 83 years since it was last seen.

The window had been created by Tiffany Studios in 1902 for the church, which was built in 1872. After removing a panel from the window, says Nidia Mezalick, an owner of Mezalick Design Studio LLC based in Philadelphia, Pa., they discovered the work was in very poor condition. It had been entombed in a cavity in which heat built up in the summer, and cold built up in the winter.

“On Tiffany windows, they are double-paned together and maybe one single pane covering a few behind it. So there could be several layers, and the challenge was to figure out a way to take it apart and relead it exactly the way that Tiffany had done it.”

The window was repaired and reinstalled to reverse to view to the outside. It was lighted with five fiber-optic boxes that sit 35-feet away from the organ pipe, go through the wall and then into the cavity behind the stained glass window.

But not all stained glass windows are in need of such a major overhaul.

Mezalick recommends churches have their stained glass windows checked every 75 to 100 years. Mezalick Studios offers free evaluation services. “A lot of the windows are in good shape—they don’t need anything but light cleaning, and you just wipe them down with water and a rag,” she says.

Other times, stained glass windows may need to be taken apart and releaded. The telltale signs are broken lead joints where the puddy is missing and the glass may be starting to slide out. “Lead never contracts, it keeps expanding,” Mezalick explains. Eventually the lead “outgrows its space, which can lead to bowing.” In the case of bowing, the panel must be removed and flattened out, or reset.

Fixing the Flow
In many cases, however, the question is not as grand as whether or not a Tiffany stained glass window can be restored. The question is more basic: How to take older existing space and update it for functionality.

“We’re big advocates of always trying to make the best use of what you have, and that is a starting point,” says Bill Merriman, a principal with Merriman Holt Architects based in Houston. The process is little different from designing new space, he says. “You have to look with fresh eyes at what’s existing, how it’s being used, and how with the least means you can make the most impact to make that space work better.”

Such was the case with Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, which was built on the side of a hill. The church’s sanctuary sat at the top of the hill, the third level of the main campus. The main entry point was on the first floor, so the second floor had evolved as the main connecting level of the campus. It was an 8-foot-wide, 478-foot-long corridor with no view to the outside nor orientation to any major gathering area.

“You could walk right past the fellowship hall or under the sanctuary without knowing they were there, so in our master plan we sought to find a way to create an inviting connection to the sanctuary and use that as a way to really improve flow throughout the campus,” says Merriman.

The end result was a building program with four components: a 5,000-square-foot atrium gathering area with a grand stair up to the sanctuary; a new 36,000-square-foot youth and young adult center across the street from the church; a 12-foot-wide skylit tunnel that connects the youth center back to the main campus; and a 360-car garage. After nearly two years of construction, the project was completed in November 2008.

“The things that we see time and again are churches looking for space to build community,” says Merriman. “That’s a theme that we didn’t used to see 15 or 20 years ago. Spaces like the sanctuary gathering area or the cozy seating groups around the 10-foot-wide stone fireplace in the youth center create opportunities for fellowship.”

Merriman adds, “We also find a strong interest in creating vibrant, attractive space for children and youth that feel specifically designed for those age groups.”

When Merriman Holt Architects programmed the future uses of Peachtree Presbyterian’s space, they did not plan expanded space for adult Sunday school, given the trend at Peachtree for more and more of these activities to happen in a member’s home or in a “third place” such as a coffee shop.

Building for the Ages
Paul Lodholz, principal of the worship place studio for Houston-based Ziegler Cooper Architects, agrees and cites a prime example in the Memorial Lutheran Church and School located in the Galleria area of Houston. The church was established in the late 1950s and its school offers a classical Christian education for infants through the eighth grade.

During the renovation, four older buildings were removed and replaced with roughly 22,000 square feet of church and school space in one large building, which houses a music suite, fellowship hall, meeting rooms, administrative area and early childcare center.

A significant part of the master plan was renovation work for a 10,000-square-foot 1070s-era building. The building had to be brought up to standards for teaching requirements, room sizes and accessibility. The renovation also entailed the replacement of lighting and mechanical systems.

“Houston churches have a fairly recent development in taking very young children into their early childcare centers. A whole wing of the school was built for that purpose, taking care of children from eight weeks to three years,” says Lodholz. The project cost $4.2 million and took roughly two years to complete from master plan through construction.

Memorial Lutheran Church and School was recently awarded the 2008 Triennial Lutheran Church Extension Fund Art and Architecture LCMS Educational Facility—Large Award for the successful facility expansion, Lodholz reports.

Back to Basics
While mechanical systems typically provide energy savings, John Hatfield, a sales manager and worship facilities director with Quad-Lock Building Systems Ltd., based in Surrey, British Columbia, advises worship facilities to consider insulation. “We’ve had a lot of people in the church industry talk to us about our product because their energy bills are just rampantly running away from them,” says Hatfield.

In many cases, churches can double their energy efficiency with the installation of Quad-Lock's R-ETRO System, a high performance insulation system. Parishioners can do much of the installation work themselves, says Hatfield. “This can be added one room at a time or one wall at a time as a church’s budget allows.”

The insulation product is about $3.75 per square foot. The average payback time in energy savings is roughly 16 months, and it reportedly adds an insulation factor of R-18 to an existing wall.

In the end, almost every project comes down to budget. After an accidental fire in April 2003, The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd located in Greenville, S.C., temporarily relocated its service to another church facility while Neal Prince Architects renovated their existing facility and expanded the seating capacity to 250 seats.

“One of the main things we did was to look for cost effective construction techniques, because the project had to fit within their insurance settlement,” says Dave Benham, a principal with Neal Prince Architects, an architectural and interiors firm based Greenville, S.C.

“We needed to do a lot of value-engineering, in effect, to get it where it needed to be and yet create the kind of environment for worship that they envisioned. There were a lot of things in terms of the structuring of the walls in simple ways, and the roof and the finishes in simple ways that create a strong environment for worship but with a minimum cost.” The whole project, Benham reports, cost less than $1 million.

Sibley Fleming is an Atlanta writer and author of several books including How to Rock Your Baby. She has been named Georgia Author of the Year and has been recognized for outstanding writing by the National League of American Pen Women.