Recreating Lost Sculptures
Essential to the restoration of historic buildings is the study of original construction drawings and photos. In reviewing the Candoro Marble Building archival images, the restoration team identified two missing urns initially placed above the arched entryway. Renowned stone carver Alberto Milani likely carved these urns.
Sanders Pace Architecture used archival photos from the 1920s to guide the reconstruction of the two urns. The first task was to determine the sculptures’ exact size and shape, and then use hand-sketched details found in Architect Charles Barber’s files to create a scaled 2D drawing and 3D computer model. Once the 3D models were ready, Sanders Pace worked with the Tennessee Marble Company in Friendsville, to develop detailed shop drawings for fabrication.
The Tennessee Marble Company is, in many ways, a contemporary iteration of the Candoro Marble Company of the early 1900s. As with Candoro, the Tennessee Marble Company quarries Tennessee Pink Marble and employs crafters to cut and shape the stone, which is shipped around the country.
To begin the fabrication process, the Tennessee Marble Company carefully selected marble blocks with features and colors that matched the Candoro Marble Building’s exterior façade stone. The stone blocks were then cut down to size, and a large-scale lathe was used to turn the blocks under a coping saw to carve out the shape of the urns. The carefully calibrated lathe spins the stone along a central, rotating axis, while the coping saw cuts the overall general dimensions of the form symmetrically. The coping saw circulates water continually along the blade and stone to help keep dust particles out of the air and keep the marble and diamond-tipped blades from overheating. After the urns’ basic shapes were cut by machine, John Cierech, one of Tennessee Marble Company’s skilled carvers, meticulously carved out every detail and finished each urn by hand. Cierech carved, sanded, and polished the urns, spending over 180 hours on the project until each urn was a beautiful recreation of the lost sculptures.