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Postcard of the plan for the Brooklyn Museum as envisioned by McKim, Mead, & White in 1893.

The original design plan for the Brooklyn Museum, developed by McKim, Mead, & White in 1893, called for a building of about 500 feet long on each side. The Museum was planned to be 3 times as large, with four courts proposed each about 150 feet square to be roofed with glass. Only one of these quadrants was actually built and it now is the Museum’s prime public indoor space, and the site of the dance parties at our famous Target First Saturdays.

If you’ve been in the building lately, the noise heard all around the eastern part of the museum is the result of our project to create a new glass floor in our third floor Court. The 10,000 square foot glass block floor in the Court has been deteriorating for many years. The glass tile and reinforced concrete panels are only 1 ¼” thick, and this unusually light structure was achieved by custom fabricating panels so that the concrete works integrally with the glass to create a stiff membrane. Over the course of 80 years many glass blocks have broken through use. Repairing the number of cracked blocks that are now there is no longer practical, so a new approach was needed to solve the problem. With support from the State of New York, the Museum was able to create a solution that would be durable, long lasting, and appropriate to the space.

Court currently under construction.

In order to create a floor that was in the spirit of the original design, we decided to preserve the existing glass tile, terrazzo, and marble mosaic tile and construct a new floor 4-1/2” above it, aligning with the level of the first tread in the steps at the four corners of the space. The new floor is made of laminated glass panels each the size of the original pre-cast concrete panels, supported on steel frames. The areas that were terrazzo will be replaced with new terrazzo to match the original. In order to make sure the floor will look the way we wanted we did a mockup, which satisfied our requirements.

Glass floors are a relatively new idea, and only possible because of advances in glass technology that have been rapid in the last decades. The glass is actually a three layer “club sandwich,” about 2” thick, that supports as much load as the building code requires. It has a special slip resistant coating, and small bumps to make it easy to walk over. Between the layers are films that prevent the transmission of ultraviolet rays that could be damaging to art installed on the floor below in our Hall of Americas.

In the Court, the original floor panels will be obscured but still slightly visible through the new glass. This approach allows a person to see the old floor through the new one – an effect that should be quite interesting. When the new floor is completed the plastic panels in the ceiling of the Hall of the Americas below can be removed, restoring its original deeply coffered appearance with the underside of the original glass tiles exposed. Mockups indicate that from the Hall of the Americas, the view to the original glass blocks will be essentially unchanged and the amount of light transmitted will not be noticeably reduced.

In addition to the new floor, we are installing new sprinklers, a new ramp both for improved access, and the nearby bathrooms will be upgraded. After the Court opens there will be a new catering kitchen to service events in the space. Right now the contractors are finishing installing the frames and making the setting bed for the terrazzo panels. The next step will be to install the terrazzo and new glass panels which are being fabricated off site, then the court will reopen to the dance party at the October Target First Saturday.

The next time you enter the Grand Lobby of the museum, make sure you cast your eyes upwards. In one of the openings in the old brick façade you will find two newly on view objects. They are a Pair of Bronze Owls, two of twenty-two, which originally stood along the roof line of the old Herald Tribune building when it was built in 1893. At that time the owls eyes were electrified, blinking on and off. The owls were created by sculptor Antonin Jean Paul Carles. When the building was torn down in the 1920’s, the owls, Minerva and the Bell Ringers were given to NYU. The latter two sculptures and two owls with outstretched wings were loaned to the city in 1940 for display in Herald Square, where they remain today. The two owls that entered the Brooklyn Museum in 1971 are also on long-term loan from NYU.

To prepare for installation, the owls were first cleaned with a soft brush and vacuum to remove surface dust and then with a detergent and water to remove the more tenacious grime.

Pictured above is Emy Kim, fourth year conservation intern from the NYU IFA Conservation Program, rinsing the owls.

Before the owls were placed into the brickwork they were secured to a mounting board for safe transport and installation. Since the owls weigh in at 251 and 232 pounds they had to first be rigged onto their respect mounting boards. Soldered brass mounts were then created to secure the owls to the boards.

Pictured below at left are Paul Daniel, mount maker, and Jakki Godfrey, project conservator, rigging one of the owls onto a mounting board. Pictured below at right is a detail image of the mounting system.

Finally it was time to install the owls. The mounted owls were secured to a forklift and then gently lifted to their new location. Once in position the owls were secured in place to the brickwork.

Pictured above at left is Jason Grunwald, art handler, making sure the owl is safe as it is raised. Pictured above at right are Jim Hayes, senior art handler and Barbara Duke, art handler securing one of the owls in place.

People approaching the Museum from the Parking lot or Washington Avenue may have noticed construction materials and machinery behind a green fence. The Museum is building a new addition which will provide space for art delivery, packing, and crating. Once the building is complete, it will be relatively discreet, as it was designed to be ‘nestled’ into the hill.

There are a number of activities going on right now. First, trenching is being done for new electrical service to the building. The new electrical lines will run underground in the street from Eastern Parkway, then down Washington, and across our parking lot, and into the building. Once the trench is complete, electrical and phone lines will be placed in the hole. As might be expected, we discovered some large rocks, or boulders along the way. One very large one took about a week to remove. The technique used was to drill many holes into it and shatter it, remove the pieces, and do this repeatedly until completed.

Next, excavation will begin on the east side of the building, so that foundations can be poured for a new two story building. There are a number of large old trees near the building site. In order to help one of them survive, we air spaded the roots. This is a process of exposing the roots using air, not shovels, so they are not damaged. Because no large roots had to be cut where large trees cross the construction area, the tree will survive.

Having this addition will give us a dedicated art loading dock for the Museum, so that sandwiches, paper, and the myriad of other things delivered to the Museum are separate from the art! The building will also house mechanical equipment that will enable the eastern section of the museum to be air conditioned. As some people know, our building was built in stages, starting in 1897. At that time air conditioning was not considered essential for museums. Today, both to keep the environment stable for art and visitors, not only temperature control, but also control of humidity is considered ideal for art. We will have had, and will continue to have quite a few projects that are leading us to full climate control for our collections.

The first time I came across the statues that sit along the top of the building was when I digitized images of the Museum’s exterior as an intern in the Archives. It was great to see some of the early images of the building and to see how it developed and changed over the years. The statues are part of our Museum’s history and a frequently asked research topic at the Libraries and Archives. When I was thinking about this post, I was curious to see what types of questions we’ve received in the past, so I took a look at some of our old reference request forms. Yes, in typical archives fashion we keep these forms and they can be very useful, such as in this situation. The questions about the statues include inquiries about specific sculptors, the meaning of the statues, who created them, and when and how they were made. Here’s a little background information on the creation of the statues.

McKim, Mead & White, the architects of the Museum, included the statues as part of the Museum’s original design. The statues and the unrelated names inscribed below them were meant to represent notable aspects in the history of civilization. The statues in particular were symbolic and not intended to be portraits. This is visually reinforced by the fact that the statues and the names are not aligned, but staggered (see photo above).

Daniel Chester French in his workshop. Photo Collection: Museum building: exteriors [02].

The noted sculptor Daniel Chester French was given the responsibility of creating thirty statues of allegorical figures representing Persian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Greek and Roman subjects. He enlisted a group of highly-regarded sculptors to assist him with the project (Edmund T. Quinn, Attilio Piccirili, Edward C. Potter, Karl Bitter, Janet Scudder, Augustus Lukeman, Charles Keck, George T. Brewster, Kenyon Cox, Herbert Adams, John Gelert, and Charles A. Heber). The finished statues were installed in 1909.

Finished statues being hoisted into position. Photo Collection: Museum building: exteriors [02].

Because of the continuing interest in the statues, we thought it might be a good idea to put together some images and information on them. This was a group effort which included various departments (Information Systems, Digital Collections and Services, Conservation, Planning and Libraries and Archives). See below for additional images and resources. Hope you enjoy them. (more…)