We’re in the process of painting a new mural for the New York Palace Hotel, and were just interviewed about our work. Bill Mensching, director of our mural department, along with Zinni Veshi, the artist commissioned for the work, were interviewed about the process for designing and painting this piece that will become this iconic New York building’ newest mural. Click to read on…

“Art has always been a key element in the décor of the New York Palace. From sculptures like Penny to The Reluctant Model, we look to showcase various types of artwork that will spark interest among our guests. While incorporating numerous pieces into our new designs at the hotel, there’s one piece that will have the greatest canvas to be working from: our 2nd floor mural!

This mural is definitely a force to be reckoned with as it will be unlike any other piece we currently have on display. We commissioned Evergreene Architectural Arts to create the painting because of their strong background and reputation in working with historic, New York spaces like The Empire State Building and The Chrysler Building. Evergreene’s familiarity with blending old and new design elements together was a major factor, as that is the common theme for our renovations.

Recently, we took a trip to the Evergreene studio in Manhattan to see the work in progress and chat with Evergreene’s Mural Director Bill Mensching and mural artist Zinni Veshi.

The New York Palace: What themes are incorporated into the mural?

Zinni Veshi: The mural represents the Industrial Revolution and New York City, which are both key elements that shaped Henry Villard into the businessman he was. The mural embodies steel, railroads, coal and steam, but also you will see water, bridges and buildings in the distance that represent New York City. In addition, the interior designers chose to use a color palette of rich golds, grays and black that bring out the colors of the future hotel lobby design.

The New York Palace: What is the design process for the mural?

Zinni Veshi: Once the design was approved, I took the ideas and themes and incorporated them into pencil sketches. I use those sketches as a model for the actual canvas. What is significant about the process is that I don’t copy the sketches but instead use them as inspiration of how the mural is supposed to look. I start by painting the canvas with the lighter colors then use the darker colors as an overlay. I also use an overhead projector that enlarges the images and helps me scale what I paint. Repetitive patterns are also incorporated into the mural to give the piece movement. This particular piece flows in a zigzag motion.

The New York Palace: What feelings do you want to evoke from guests?

Bill Mensching: This piece will be part of the experience at The Palace. It is not the focal point but is more like the background music that keeps you interested as you take in all of your surroundings.

The New York Palace: What sets the mural apart?

Bill Mensching: What sets the mural apart is that Zinni took a limited palette of warm lights and cool darks to create an entire world of color within the palette.

The New York Palace: How were you selected for the mural?

Bill Mensching: The Palace came to us with a rough idea of what they wanted to be created. They knew the theme and the colors which we learned by collaborating with the designers before developing the project. Then, it was our job to take their vision and turn it into this magnificent artwork. After initial discussions and visits, were able to conceptualize what the piece would look like in the current space, however, the challenge was actually creating something that would fit into the newly renovated space that doesn’t exist yet.

The New York Palace: How did you get started in the art industry?

Zinni Veshi: I started at an early age in daycare which turned into competing in art contests as a way to attend art schools and universities. Originally I am from Albania, and came to the United States in 1996. I first lived in Los Angeles before moving to New York to paint. Painting is a job that I love deeply and is the only job I want to do for a living.

Bill Mensching: Like Zinni, I also started drawing and painting at a young age. I studied in New York at the School of Visual Arts and then began a career in the New York theater business. I worked as a stagehand, scenic carpenter and scenic painter and I decided I wanted to do something more permanent.

The New York Palace: Something that wouldn’t be torn down eventually, right?

Bill Mensching: Exactly! So I started working at Evergreene, and for the past 25 years, I’ve focused on murals. I would have loved to paint more, but Zinni has a great vision and I enjoy working with him and our other team members.

Overall, this piece one of our most highly anticipated works to be included in our renovations and will be installed in late May. In the meantime visit Zinni Veshi’s website, www.zinniveshi.com and Bill Mensching’s website, www.williammensching.com to enjoy their personal and equally beautiful works of art.”

Recently, the Wall Street Journal declared Michael Bloomberg the “Mayor of Preservation,” because his administration has created and expanded 41 historic districts throughout the city, which is more than his predecessors. While critics argue that some of the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s decisions were based more on guiding development rather than preserving historic districts and properties, one can’t deny that New York City’s architectural vibrancy largely comes from embracing both historic and contemporary design. The Meatpacking district, for example, reuses many of its old structures in a new way, and has been transformed from vacant and crime ridden to a cultural center for art, fashion, and nightlife. It is a true testament to the success of historic preservation with an undeniable contemporary “cool” factor.

Preservation makes sense: it creates jobs, increases property values, invites tourism, encourages sustainability, and revitalizes cites. Preservation is an important economic driver in local communities. Whether you walk through a historic district—like the Upper West Side/Central Park West district (including the American Museum of Natural History), visit a single building like Eldridge Street Synagogue, or be “wowed” by the unique interiors at the Park Avenue Armory, you understand the power of preservation. And you understand the importance of retaining neighborhoods and properties that teach us about our history.

Great urban centers are created by a series of balancing acts, and historic preservation vs. contemporary design is just one consideration. At EverGreene, our offices overlook the renovation of the High Line, and the development at Hudson Yards. We see every day that historic and contemporary are complimentary. And we’re grateful that groups like the Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council help to maintain that balance.

Click here to read WSJ’s full story.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has so many amazing murals, but of the many passages of murals throughout the building, I’ve always felt the William Andrew MacKay murals in the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall were my favorite—and lucky for me, because I had the great pleasure of working to begin an long relationship examining and conserving them beginning in 2008, where I assisted Gillian Randell our chief conservator with the conservation feasibility study which ultimately led to EverGreene getting contracted to conserve the full series. It was a real treat and proved to be one of the most challenging experiences of my life.

The exciting history reads something like this: The murals were painted by a crack team of mural artists under MacKay in 1935 onto a lovely coarse jute canvas, glued onto the plaster wall beneath.  However, soon after the painting was completed, and even as early as the 1950s, problems began to arise.  The paintings were starting to delaminate from the plaster wall!  Then a series of plastering experts, painting and decorating companies, and famous conservators began to try to offer solutions and prepare reports and proposals to try and help treat these pockets of plaster debris that were beginning to collect behind the canvas, and were actually pulling the painting off the wall, damaging the mural in the process.

When EverGreene arrived, we excavated samples of the plaster behind the murals and sent them for petrographic analysis to Highbridge Materials Consulting who ran a battery of tests to determine if there could be any problems with the plaster.  Why was the plaster falling apart in so many locations?  Well, after we received their extensive report we realized that the plaster throughout the mural series (underneath the canvas murals, that is) had never fully carbonized, or cured, and that there were many inconsistencies in the original plastering mix.

In the 1990s, a conservator was engaged to try and treat some of these delaminating locations.  Their team installed some temporary wooden “buttons” and “strips” to try and hold the paintings onto the wall, and where they could, they removed plaster debris from behind the canvas.  But the problem was much bigger.

After much analysis and thought EverGreene, city agencies, the construction team, and the museum conservation staff decided to remove some of the canvas murals from the wall to treat the plaster substrate beneath.  Can you imagine what it’s like to remove a thirty foot tall mural that’s twelve feet wide? Well it’s incredibly complex, and involves a lot of scaffolding with a talented and passionate team with a commitment to preservation.  So from 2010 until the fall of 2012, Evergreene worked literally around the clock. Because the museum is open seven days a week, sometimes our work would begin at 6pm, other times at 7am—honestly that was one of the harder parts for our conservation team.  The museum remained fully operational throughout the entire process, with the scaffolding covered in a white skrim, which is a type of screen, that hid the entire work area and protected visitors from the work we were doing right above them as they milled into John Russell Pope’s (the architect who designed the TR Memorial Hall) wonderful coffered barrel vault entrance.

Finally, in September 2012, the scaffolding company Eagle Scaffolding Services came and removed the scaffolding very carefully, and quickly (they were amazing during the project). And the finished murals were revealed.  Once we managed to weave a fifteen foot tube through vertical scaffolding pipes, thirty feet in the air, then we had to safely get them down off of the scaffolding and into our custom-built work room down in the bowels of the building.  There we erected a containment room to control dust and debris, with huge tables to lay the paintings out flat to work on them. It was wild; the conservators all wore spacesuits and full-face respirators during this phase of the conservation process, it was tough work, and everyone really earned their stripes.  Also, I’m not sure if you’ve ever worn a tyvek suit before, but believe me when I tell you that it was hot in them, to say the least!  As I mentioned, the murals had become distorted and stretched out of shape because of the broken plaster that was bearing against the back of them, and there was also a thick layer of plaster and the old paste-glue that had to be removed from the back before we could re-hang the paintings.

Once we finished the “back-of-canvas-work” as we called it, we had an exciting night in the Hall of Ocean Life, underneath the big whale where we laid out all of the murals to make sure everything lined up, sort of a dry-run for their installation. After we hung the paintings back onto the wall with a more modern, sturdier glue, we started cleaning them and doing the aesthetic infilling and inpainting, followed by a final varnish to seal and bring out the colors.  We realized that MacKay had painted so many complementary colors next to one another which really made the colors pop. He was a camouflage artist during World War I so it makes sense he’d be using clever tricks like that.

Thanks to everyone at EverGreene, and the construction team at the museum, they look fantastic and I don’t think any of us will ever forget the experience.

(Left: Conservator Kumiko Hisano and team conducted inpainting to re-create areas that had been lost as a result of damage)

Forrest Filler has been with EverGreene since May 2007 as a conservation technician.  He is valued for his skill in conducting finishes studies, developing chemical methodologies for cleaning and overpaint removal of painted surfaces, and implementing those treatment plans. He began his work with easel painting conservation in private practice in 2005 and has been a member of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) since that time.

EverGreene has just begun work to restore the Clara Barton Missing Soldier’s Office, which has been unoccupied the past 100 years.

The property, owned by the GSA, has sat uninhabited since 1911. Just before demolition was scheduled, a GSA employee stumbled across some artifacts in the attic, which uncovered the history of the building, and found it to be Clara Barton’s Missing Soldier’s Office, where she worked tirelessly during the civil war. We’re so honored to be a part of this important project and are very excited this historic building will be saved and renovated into a museum where guests can come and learn about the “Angel of the Battlefield” and founder of the American Red Cross. Watch the video above to hear Richard Lyons’ story of how he found the hidden artifacts.

It may look like the set of an apocalypse film now, but the Loew’s Kings Theatre will be one of New York’s most prized theaters once again. After 5 years of planning, EverGreene is now starting some major work to completely restore this gem, which has been abandoned for the past 30 years in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

“Today, Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Markowitz broke ground on the restoration of the historic Loew’s Kings Theatre in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Originally constructed in 1929, the 3,200-seat Loew’s Kings Theatre is the largest indoor theater in Brooklyn. Its design was heavily influenced by the Palace of Versailles and Paris Opera House, and features ornate architectural details in the French Renaissance Style. In 1977, the theatre closed and has remained vacant since, suffering decades of neglect and deterioration. Today’s announcement represents the culmination of the City’s efforts to revitalize the theatre.” See the full press release here.

EverGreene is proud to be a part of the team leading the restoration and we are taking care to make sure this historic theater is brought back to its former glory. Click on the video below to watch how we conducted a Historic Finishes Investigation at the Lowe’s Kings Theater.

These new murals & decoration designed and painted by EverGreene for St. Paul the Apostle in Westerville, OH portrays a representation of the Heavenly Crucifixion, the Holy City of Jerusalem, communion of new and old world saints, and the perfected garden.

At EverGreene, we are constantly seeking out meaning and historical context behind the interiors we work on in order to make more informed decisions. President Jeff Greene recently was honored to be a guest speaker at the Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, IL where he spoke about what makes a sacred space. As a decorator, painter, and traveler, Jeff has always sought out the meaning of the sacred across cultures, and this has been both a professional and personal life’s pursuit. What follows below are some ideas extrapolated from his talk of how he searches for the meaning behind sacred spaces and interiors.

Buildings are vessels. They are containers into which we put certain things to ascribe their meaning. An office is a vessel for productivity and work. A home is a vessel for relaxation, comfort, and escape. A sacred space may come in many forms and can be a place in nature, a site of reflection, or a man-made structure. These structures evoke contemplation and reflection, and can act as physical representations of heaven or a non-worldly, intangible realm. These environments can inspire awe, sometimes by their monumentality, other times by their profusion of information that stimulates the senses and can fill us with emotion. Some spaces cause you to turn inwards, and others can excite us with pattern, texture, color, and light.

This is a replica of the Dura Europos wall EverGreene created for a permanent exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York. 

Despite the vast differences in cultures, between the east and west, the ancient and modern, man has been intent on creating the feeling of the sacred through artistic pursuits in a variety of media. This artwork can bridge the gap between the physical and the ineffable.

Successful attempts to capture the sacred in a man-made structure have certain universal principles that, when employed in a harmonious way, contribute to the experience of sometimes powerful feelings and emotions. Factors such as the quality of the craftsmanship and materials can often be appreciated by all and do not rely on cultural understanding to communicate the craftsman’s dedication to the pursuit of excellence, perfection, or godliness. Factors such as historical context, on the other hand, can also conduct emotion. EverGreene recently worked on a project for the Discovery Center’s traveling exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We were contracted to recreate a portion of the Western Wall from the Second Temple in Jerusalem, also known as the Wailing Wall. Though it is only a humble stone wall, the historical significance and context contributes to a powerful feeling that has been understood by many across different cultures and religions. Its namesake even comes from the biological result of the powerful emotion many experience there. What is it about experiencing this wall creates such a profound effect on the soul?

EverGreene sculpted and painted this replica of the Wailing Wall as well as an ossuary replica for the Discovery Center’s traveling exhibition for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Outside of religious or historical significance, physical factors such as the size of the space, colors, forms, textures, and values have the ability to not only inspire emotions such as self reflection, humility, awe, empowerment, or fear, but can also psychologically affect how we perceive abstract concepts. “[There is] a relationship between the perceived height of a ceiling and cognition. High ceilings promote abstract thinking and creativity. Low ceilings promote concrete and detail-oriented thinking.”[i] For example a ceiling in an operating room can enhance the performance of the doctors, while a high ceiling in a church or temple can encourage the human mind to pursue concepts such as paradise or spirituality. This phenomenon, called the Cathedral Effect, is a symptom of the human brain at work to contextualize the self in relation to its surroundings.

EverGreene restored the original decorative paint scheme of the magnificent Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Albany, New York whose dark interior illuminated by stained glass evokes a sense of mystery and solemnity.

Beyond evoking emotions that we may not fully understand, sacred spaces can contain layers of meaning. When the designer, artist, or craftsman imbues significance into the elements they create, they leave discovery up to the viewer. We can learn to perceive more through a sensitivity to our surroundings. By learning to see more we can develop an intellectual understanding of the formalistic principles of design: balance, rhythm, proportion, pattern, contrast, movement, emphasis, and unity.

The creation of the sacred does not limit itself to traditional buildings with historical significance. The Rothko Chapel in Houston is regarded by many as being a place of spiritual discovery and contemplation, even though it is a relatively modern building with no connection to any one organized religion.

“The Rothko Chapel is oriented toward the sacred and yet it imposes no traditional environment. It offers a place where a common orientation could be found – an orientation towards God, named or unnamed, an orientation towards the highest aspirations of Man and the most intimate calls of the conscience.” -Dominique de Menil

Read more about the Rothko Chapel here.

There are no step by step instructions on how to create a sacred space.  (There is a reason the book “Making a Space Sacred in 10 Easy Steps” doesn’t exist.)  We learn through careful observation of our surroundings and experiences, and no two people will have the same understanding of those experiences. Understanding what it is that we sense in these spaces can help us relate these environments to one another. Much like man’s search for the higher power, there are many different ways mankind has attempted emulating the spiritual with the physical; despite consistent themes and similar results, the process of creation itself is also intangible.

For some examples of Sacred Spaces we’ve been a part of in the past, click here.

Architecture and Business from ArchDaily on Vimeo.

Check out this great video from one of our favorite blogs, Arch Daily.

Jenn Kennedy, author of Success by Design and AD collaborator, asked an influential group of architects about their business directions. These testimonials by Dan Meis, Art Gensler, Lauren Rottet and Steven Ehrlich give valuable insights on running a successful firm.

Lauren Rottet’s comments about the interior design process and making creative decisions in regards to client personality and function of the space is very insightful. It is also very similar to how we operate at EverGreene, even though we deal with an entirely different, though complementary, part of the interior design process.

Severe water damage at the Verizon Building in New York is evident in this once beautiful ceiling mural.

Hurricane Sandy’s effect on the buildings of New York City has been profound. In architecturally significant interiors, murals, decorative painting, plaster, and other elements can be damaged by changes in environmental conditions such as water infiltration and fluctuations in temperature and humidity. These photographs of the Verizon Building help show the devastation that water damage can have on our city’s beautiful buildings.

Rising damp, migration of salts, the formation of micro-climates, and material failures can manifest themselves in the form of delaminating paint, plaster, and canvas; mold growth; efflorescence; cracking; and granular disintegration. Time is of the essence in treating water-damaged murals and finishes; it is easier to curb the spread of mold growth now than it is to treat it after attack down the road.

Above, conservator Kumiko Hisano assists in the restoration of the vast ceiling murals at the Verizon building, then the finished restoration beneath.

EverGreene is currently providing complimentary site visits to advise on emergency stabilization measures.  EverGreene conservators are available to assess and treat murals, decorative finishes, and architectural elements that have been damaged by the storm.

If your building has been damaged by the hurricane & resultant floods, please contact Amanda Stauffer Park at apark@evergreene.com.

EverGreene has a team of five Professional Associates with the American Institute for Conservation (AIC), and a large staff of conservation technicians experienced in the stabilization and treatment of murals and architectural arts in situ and off-site in our Manhattan studio.

EverGreene’s plaster and painting restoration divisions have skilled craftsman on call for repair of ceilings and walls.

Before restoration, Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York showed devastating damage to plaster and painting finishes.

EverGreene’s technical assistance and field services have been supported by grants from the City and State agencies, including the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., and by organizations including the New York Landmarks Conservancy. EverGreene is a member of the Association for Preservation Technology International.

If you are part of a small organization, such as a theater or gallery, you may be eligible for emergency business relief from the Small Business Authority or FEMA. For advice on navigating this process, please consult the following guide from Heritage Preservation:  www.heritagepreservation.org/federal/index.html

Check out this time lapse video of EverGreene painters hard at work!

EverGreene began an on-site historical finishes investigation at the Saenger Theater in New Orleans back in 2006 to determine the original historic finishes scheme after Hurricane Katrina left this historic theater severely damaged. To accomplish this, exposure windows were examined and over 150 paint samples were extracted by scalpel, and examined under the microscope.  EverGreene is now honored to have been invited back to this beautiful New Orleans theater under the direction of our very own Terry Vanderwell to renew the space to it’s original brilliance.

We are responsible for the station’s ornamental plaster rehabilitation work, which includes an extensive process of removing plaster ornament, creating molds using liquid Vytaflex rubber, and casting new ornamental pieces which will be installed and painted into the place where the previous ornament adorned the ceilings and columns. We’ve been employing many different methods and techniques to accomplish the task, several of which can be seen here in this video.

Heres what we’re doing:

Mold forms sometimes have to be created from scratch when an original piece is not available, or too damaged by time. Other times a large removed original section with damages could be repaired prior to mold casting. Molds can also be made directly on an original piece in place. The ultimate goal is to create a rubber mold to use for future plaster replications.

The low viscosity of the Vytaflex allows it to be brushed on and flows into small complex details. A hard plaster back is also often added to hold the flexible rubber mold shape during future casting. Removing the Vytaflex could be a very difficult task for extra large pieces during the initial mold castings. However, future replication casting using the Vytaflex mold is made easier with certain non-stick chemical applications.

Once a Vytaflex mold is created, it can be used for the reproduction of hundreds of pieces. Here, the artisan is adding a layer of hemp to the plaster itself for additional tensile strength. Hemp is often used in layers, and makes the plaster pieces much sturdier over time, and helps prevent dried pieces from falling if the ornament ever becomes damaged from general wear and tear or time in the distant future. The plaster is very warm to the touch and chemical vapors can be seen while the plaster is curing.

Via Seattle Department of Transportation. Photography by John Stamets.

Ornamental plaster restoration work is expected to be completed by Spring of 2013.