The Stone "Curtain" Sheds New Light on Timeless Material
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| The stone “Curtain” won the 2004 PRISM Grand Prize. |
The ability to use traditional materials to create something altogether new and unexpected created a distinct ‘buzz’ in the design world, thanks to the groundbreaking BAC/IMI “Masonry Variations” exhibit, which ran from October 2003 to April 2004 at the National Building Museum.
Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman, FAIA, guest curator of the exhibit, tapped four leading designers, paired them with skilled BAC craftworkers/ IMI senior staffers, and challenged all to “push the envelope” for four materials: stone, brick, terrazzo and AAC. The challenge brilliantly illustrated the value of close designer-craftworker collaboration [The brick exhibit was covered in the March/April 2004 Journal, p. 27.]
This was especially true for the stone “Curtain” exhibit created by architect Jeanne Gang, AIA, a principal of Studio Gang Architects in Chicago, and IMI Special Projects Coordinator and Local 1 Maryland/Virginia/D.C. stonemason Matthew Redabaugh.
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| The view from inside the stone “Curtain” shows the thinness of the marble and the delicate nature of the process, which included the much-anticipated day when the formwork was removed. |
For architect Gang and skilled craftsman Redabaugh, “pushing the stone envelope” meant reconfiguring the ageless material’s accepted structural characteristics to produce an inhabitable space. Gang met that challenge by transforming 619 pieces of stone, suspended from the ceiling in chains, into an enveloping masonry “Curtain.”
As the National Building Museum’s fourth most popular show ever, “Masonry Variations” drew interest and praise from the public as well as the design community. The stone “Curtain” was also singled out as the Grand Prize winner of the coveted 2004 PRISM Award for excellence in design, sponsored by Architectural Record and the Marble Institute of America.
Gang began the design process by exploring the technologies and tools for cutting stone. Using the thinnest possible stone while maintaining its strength intrigued her, and she soon realized that material strength could come from the composite strength, achieved through gluing or laminating a backing material to the stone prior to cutting it. The realization “unleashed entirely new possibilities for designing with stone,” says Gang. “Glue and fiber in composite materials play a major role in highly advanced technologies, not to mention building products we have used for centuries, like mud and straw.”
Countless hours of material testing at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s laboratory facilities produced 3/8-inch thick marble, which, with the assistance of laminated fiberglass, reached 700 pounds of tensile strength. Gang and Redabaugh had met the first in a series of challenges for designing stone in tension.
While the thinness and translucency of the stone “Curtain” make a statement, material selection and the shape of the pieces were equally important. The cone-shaped stone pieces came to Gang in a dream, after completing a difficult jigsaw puzzle. The marble puzzle pieces also offered an interlocking connection that could transfer weight from one piece to the next, making the entire stone “Curtain” self-supporting. The 18-foot high project was held together with structural silicone. The decision to hang the curtain from the ceiling was reached only after the team discovered the project’s weight exceeded the museum’s floor load capacity.
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| All 619 unique puzzle pieces hung in tension, defying industry practices. Stainless steel turnbuckles were attached from the ceiling anchors to aluminum puzzle pieces from which was hung the first course of stone. |
One of the most frequent questions Gang continues to receive is, “How do you take a design like that and bring it to life?” Gang’s answer is, “The right craftworker with the right skills.”
Redabaugh likens the experience to IMI Masonry Camp, where architectural students and apprentice masons work hand-in-glove for a week. “I can’t say that I didn’t have concerns over where the architect was taking this project,” he says. “But what I also had was a sense of ‘let’s see what happens.’ We both relied on that until the final formwork was pulled.”
What reassured Redabaugh was the architect’s expertise and passion. Together, they faced challenges in material selection, fabrication, testing, and productivity. Driving it all was the exchange of information, knowledge, and skills between the architect and stonemason.
Redabaugh notes that in a project with virtually no level or plumb points, typical stone setting tools were useless. “The rules had clearly changed,” he says. Gang, too, had to put aside her reliance on computer-generated drawings, made useless by the “Curtain’s” three planes.
By sharing the full experience of bringing a design to life and true collaboration, Gang and Redabaugh were able to change both materials
and mindsets.
Next Issue “AAC Exhibit”
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