Download Religious Buildings - Washington National Cathedral

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Vol. 29/No. 6
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Religious Buildings: Ecclesiastical Specialties/Art Glass/Murals & Mosaics/Doors, Windows & Hardware/Decorative Painting/Metalwork/Lighting
PLUS
Profile of Thomas Gordon Smith
Repairing the Washington
National Cathedral
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December 2016
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THE PROFESSIONAL’S RESOURCE FOR PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE
Traditional Building
5720 Flatiron Parkway
Boulder, CO 80301
TRADITIONAL BUILDING
TraditionalBuilding
Clem Labine’s
DECEMBER 2016
[ RECENT PROJECT]
Repairing
a Shaken
Cathedral
THIS YEAR MARKS A SIGNIFICANT ANNIVERSARY FOR WASHINGTON NATIONAL
CATHEDRAL—it has been five years since the 5.8
earthquake rattled it on August 23, 2011, causing
$34 million in damage. The full name of this landmark Episcopal church is the Cathedral Church of
Saint Peter and Saint Paul (in the City and Diocese
of Washington).
Although it is a significant date in the Cathedral’s
timeline, it is one of many. The history stretches
back to 1792 when Pierre L’Enfant under George
Washington set aside land for a non-denominational
house of prayer for national purposes as part of his
20 CLEM LABINE’S TRADITIONAL BUILDING
Plan for the Federal City. It was over 100 years
before some committed Episcopalians put forth the
resources, pursued a charter and purchased land to
live into that mission. Construction didn’t begin
until September 29, 1907, when President Theodore
Roosevelt laid the cornerstone. Bethlehem Chapel,
the oldest worship space in the Cathedral, opened for
services on May 1, 1912; the 300-ft. Gloria in Excelsis
tower was dedicated in 1964; and the Cathedral was
finally finished in 1990, after 83 years of construction, with President George H. W. Bush present for
the laying of the last stone. It cost approximately $65
million to build and it weighs 150,000 tons.
PROJECT
Post-Earthquake Restoration of Washington
National Cathedral, Washington, DC
ARCHITECT
James W. Shepherd, AIA, LEED, Director of
Preservation and Facilities
TOP: A view of the Washington National Cathedral
with scaffolding in place after the 2011 earthquake.
All photos: courtesy of Washington National Cathedral
ABOVE LEFT: James Shepherd
ABOVE: A fallen angel from the central tower.
www.traditionalbuilding.com
ABOVE: The earthquake
caused extensive damage to the grand pinnacle
of the central tower.
RIGHT: A close-up view of
damage to one of the pinnacles, with the Washington
Monument in the background.
BELOW: The central tower after the 5.8 earthquake
that occurred on August 23, 2011.
www.traditionalbuilding.com
CLEM LABINE’S TRADITIONAL BUILDING 21
A look at some of
the damage to the
south transept.
The original design for the Cathedral was developed by George Frederick Bodley with his partner
and former student, Henry Vaughan. Bodley died
in 1907 before any construction had begun and
Vaughn passed away in 1917, shortly after the first
Cathedral chapel was completed. Philip Hubert
Frohman of Frohman, Robb and Little, took over
the project in 1921 and led the work until his death
in 1972. The work was then carried on mostly
according to his instructions.
The majestic 530-ft. cruciform-shaped Gothic
cathedral, made primarily of Indiana limestone,
is remarkable, with flying buttresses on the east
and west facades, 112 gargoyles, 215 stained-glass
windows, 762 boss stones, 288 angels on top of the
two west towers and an organ with 10,650 pipes.
The 26-ft.-dia. window, “The Creation,” above
the main entry on the West Façade, is one of three
such windows. This one was designed by Rowan
LeCompte, fabricated by Dieter Goldkuhle and was
installed in 1976.
The Cathedral has a long (one-tenth of a mile)
nave, side aisles, eight bays and a five-bay chancel
intersected by a six-bay transept. The 300-ft. Gloria in
Excelsis tower over the transept actually reaches 600+
feet above sea level (the cathedral is on high ground),
making it the highest point in Washington, DC.
The West Façade, the last portion to be completed and the main entry, features two 158-ft. 10-in.
towers and three entries each topped with tympanum carvings by Frederick Hart. He also sculpted
22 CLEM LABINE’S TRADITIONAL BUILDING
the statues of Adam and Saints Peter and Paul that
greet visitors as they enter the Cathedral.
The energy of the 2011 earthquake moved
through the building, releasing through the four
50-ft. grand pinnacles on the Gloria in Excelsis tower
as well as through other pinnacles and roof ornament.
In addition, the flying buttresses cracked. The end
result was that more than 75% of the pinnacles were
damaged as were many of the intricate stone carvings.
“A lot of pieces rotated, twisted and fell,” says
James W. Shepherd, AIA, LEED, director of preservation and facilities. “We were lucky that no one was
hurt that day. Most of the pieces fell onto the roof.
Only a few pieces fell to the ground and fortunately
there were no pedestrians, and visitor traffic was low
because it was summertime.”
“For a 100-year-old building, we performed
pretty well during the earthquake,” Shepherd adds.
“The building is still standing and the roof is intact,
but it shook and the energy released itself in the pinnacles, which are part decorative and part structural.
Because it was built the medieval way—stone on
stone and set with mortar—there was no reinforcement between stones. By the time we got to 1990,
the west front did include some reinforcement, so it
performed better during the earthquake.”
“The most visible damage was on the central
tower,” he explained. “One of the grand pinnacles
collapsed and the other three had to be disassembled
and stabilized. They are over 50 ft. tall.”
“We had no earthquake insurance,” he adds. “It
had been more than 100 years since a similar earthquake had occurred in the DC region so we didn’t
imagine that we would need it.”
The Cathedral was immediately closed after the
quake, to make sure the building was safe, and reopened on November 7, 2011. “We tried to re-open
by September 11, to commemorate the ten-year
anniversary of that event,” says Shepherd, “but that
was not possible.” Davis Construction of Rockville,
MD, was brought in as the general contractor for the
repair work.
Although there wasn’t much damage to the interior, protective netting was stretched 25 feet below
the ceiling immediately after the earthquake to
ensure that any loose debris didn’t fall to the ground.
The gothic vaulted ceiling soars 100 ft. above the
nave floor. “Of the $34 million needed for repairs,
we were able to raise $10 million,” Shepherd notes.
The first $2 million was spent on stabilization,
including the protective netting.
The next step was analysis. Because there had
been so many designers and contractors involved
with the construction of the Cathedral over the
years, there were no accurate “as-built” plans or
documents for the building. “So we had the building scanned by Direct Dimensions, Inc., a laser scanning specialist with heritage documentation expertise. There were 890 individual 3-D scans—and
these were translated into very accurate electronic
elevation and floor plan drawings that we could use
to plan for repairs,” he adds.
www.traditionalbuilding.com
ABOVE: The energy of the
quake moved parts of the
grand pinnacle on the south
transept.
TOP RIGHT: The newest
part of the Cathedral, the
west facade, suffered less
damage than other portions
of the building.
MIDDLE RIGHT: Scaffolding
was added to the east
end, the oldest part of the
Cathedral, where repairs
to the exterior began.
RIGHT: Workers on
the scaffolding on
the south transept.
www.traditionalbuilding.com
CLEM LABINE’S TRADITIONAL BUILDING 23
ABOVE: The nave with protective netting in place,
before scaffolding.
24 CLEM LABINE’S TRADITIONAL BUILDING
BELOW: Scaffolding in the nave allowed work to continue without interfering with the worship services.
Shepherd and his team focused on the inside
first. Scaffolding that didn’t come all the way to
the ground allowed the work to continue without
interfering with the worship services. “We worked
with Safway Services, the scaffolding subcontractor who recommended the use of an existing ledge
at the clerestory level on either side of the nave
about 65 feet up to span across with lightweight
trusses. A platform was built on the trusses and from
there additional fixed scaffold was constructed that
reached to the height of the ceiling,” he explains.
“Lorton Stone, the masonry sub-contractor, was
able to clean, repoint and repair all of the stone of the
high vaulting. At the same time, while the scaffolding was in place, we cleaned all of the stained-glass
windows at the clerestory level. It is now very bright
and beautiful.”
Then they turned to the exterior. The first goal
was the east end, the oldest part of the cathedral,
where six flying buttresses had been damaged.
Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc, the project
engineers of record, was brought in to engineer
the repairs of buttresses and add seismic reinforcement. Davis Construction subcontracted Masonry
Solutions International, Inc. to drill horizontally
through the buttresses (a distance of about 22 ft.) and
3 in. into the side of the cathedral. Stainless steel rods
were then inserted and grout was injected to provide
additional strengthening.
A similar type of reinforcement was added to
the pinnacles, except that they were drilled vertically. The pinnacles were first disassembled and
then restacked with the stainless steel center cores.
Stainless steel anchor pins were also added to resist
potential rotation. “Earthquakes cause back and
forth movement that rocks the stacked stones which
in turn can rotate. The pins and center core help
resist these movements,” Shepherd says.
“The initial funds we raised got us to June, 2015,
the end of Phase 1,” he notes. “We broke Phase 2
into 9 sub-phases.” While they were strategizing
about which sub-phase to start next, a piece of the
building fell off from the north transept in March of
2015. “This prompted us to begin Phase 2a at this
location. When we got up there, we realized that
there was quite a bit of damage; we were fortunate
that more pieces hadn’t fallen.”
The Cathedral’s head stone mason, Joe Alonso,
and two stone carvers that work for the Cathedral,
(Andy Uhl and Sean Callahan) have helped to complete these repairs.
With a nod to the 21st century, these pinnacles
were re-carved robotically by Easy Stone Center
of Vienna, VA. “We had Easy Stone carve the pinnacles to 75% completion and then the Cathedral’s
stone carvers do the remainder of the finish work,”
says Shepherd. “This was a very good marriage of
technology and craft, and it saved us a lot of time and
money. We can continue to say that all of the stone
on the outside of the Cathedral is hand carved and
unique.”
“We are now strategizing as to where to focus
our energy next,” Shepherd says pointing out that
only 13% of the exterior repairs are completed. “The
Cathedral doesn’t get any government funding—we
are dependent solely on private donations, so we
anticipate that it could take a decade to raise the
funds and complete the repairs. It took 83 years to
build the cathedral; hopefully, it won’t take 83 years
to restore it.”
– Martha McDonald
www.traditionalbuilding.com
ABOVE: Work in progress on the exterior.
RIGHT: Before and after cleaning in the ceiling
of the great choir.
BELOW RIGHT: Stone carvers repairing damaged portions of the Cathedral.
Key
Suppliers
General Contractor:
Davis Construction, Rockville, MD
Laser Scanning Specialist: Direct
Dimensions, Inc., Owings Mills, MD
Engineers: Wiss, Janney, Elstner
Associates, Northbrook, IL
Masonry Subcontractor:
Lorton Stone LLC, Springfield, VA
Stone Carving:
East Stone Center, Vienna, VA
Cathedral Stone carvers:
Joe Alonso, head stone mason;
Andy Uhl and Sean Callahan,
stone carvers
www.traditionalbuilding.com
CLEM LABINE’S TRADITIONAL BUILDING 25