EverGreene News

We made a video explaining what finishes investigations are and how they work. Check it out!

For over 30 years, EverGreene Architectural Arts has striven to be a pioneer in environmental sustainability. On a fundamental level, environmental sustainability is inherent to any restoration process: by conserving, maintaining, and restoring an interior, a vast amount of resources are spared, and it is in this manner that a core element of EverGreene’s business is at its inception intrinsically ‘green.’ EverGreene’s restoration practices are, however, just the beginning. Through the use of sustainable materials, working with local vendors, innovating material re-use, and recycling materials from job sites, ‘green’ practices are central to EverGreene’s business. Perhaps the pinnacle of EverGreene’s innovation is development of the G Series line of environmentally sustainable decorative finishes. Developed and produced in EverGreene’s NYC studio, the G Series includes materials such as:
- Low-VOC paints and sealants
- Lime-based plasters
- 100% recycled post-consumer glass coatings
- Salvaged precious metals

Combining aesthetics, durability, and sustainability, the G Series epitomizes EverGreene’s passion for ‘green’ innovation. Examples of G Series Applications include:
- The glass bead coating wall finish at a 409,000 square-foot state facility in California
- The lime-based plaster wall finish at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California
- The salvaged precious metals and plaster wall finish at a high-end apartment on New York’s Upper East Side

How to Measure EverGreene’s Effectiveness
Through a variety of practices, EverGreene uses its restoration and conservation techniques to look squarely towards the future.
- EverGreene’s plaster department employs trained craftsmen skilled in the consolidation of plaster, the reattachment of existing ornamental plaster, and the mechanical and crack repair of plaster. – EverGreene conservators recycle materials from their restoration sites to be either re-used or repurposed on other projects, thereby ensuring the lowest amount of waste possible. – EverGreene has pioneered various processes aimed at the re-use of specific on-site materials that would otherwise have to be discarded, achieved by consolidating existing finishes in order to spare an excess use of materials on site.
One of the metrics for determining the effect of restoration and conservation is called ‘embodied energy’ – an approximation of how much energy is required to transport materials to a building site, build a building, and then use it. In turn, the embodied energy of an historic building is equal to 5 to 15 gallons of gasoline per square foot. Therefore, with the 300 billion square feet of extant space in the United States, the current square footage of the US is equal to 1.5 to 4.5 trillion gallons of gas. This absolutely massive number speaks to the necessity of conserving and maintaining existing buildings rather than fabricating new structures. EverGreene is painstakingly aware of the exigency of conserving as much embodied energy as possible, and therefore goes to great lengths to develop innovative and unique means of maintaining and restoring as much of a project as possible.
In the aforementioned ways and many others, EverGreene has been and continues to be a pioneer in the design, innovation, and implementation of environmentally sustainable practices.

After 100 Years of Waiting, New Murals Complete Kentucky Capitol’s Classical Interior

FRANKFORT: Timed to coincide with the Kentucky State Capitol’s centennial celebration on June 4th and 5th 2010, EverGreene Architectural Arts has been commissioned to paint 4 pendentive murals, to be installed in the rotunda of Kentucky’s Statehouse.

When the Capitol Building was originally built, plans were in place for the muralist Frank Millet—a former Harvard classmate of Kentucky’s then Governor August E. Willson—to design and paint the mural pendentive areas. Tragically, Millet died on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic on April 14, 1912, and with his passing, plans for murals in the Capitol rotunda were put on hold. Several initiatives to resurrect the murals were proposed in the years thereafter, but the various plans were shelved due to economics of state government.

When EverGreene Architectural Arts performed a restoration of the Kentucky State Capitol’s State Reception Room in 1991, Jeff Greene presented Capitol officials with a sketch of what the Capitol Rotunda could look like with painted pendentive murals. The sketch was put in an attic, and found by chance in 2005 by David Buchta, the Director and State Curator of the Kentucky Division of Historic Properties.

The Division of Historic Properties subsequently initiated a restoration of the Capitol Rotunda. The planning, logistics, and fundraising took over three years; in the course of this, Mr. Buchta and others realized that the restoration of the rotunda was an ideal time to incorporate new murals into the Capitol Centennial Legacy Commission. Based on Mr. Greene’s sketch from over a decade before, Mr. Buchta contacted EverGreene and began a discussion about the design process; initially, however, though the murals were solicited, the planning committee lacked the funding to actually commission the pendentive murals.

Marion Forcht, a member of the Historic Properties Advisory Commission, stepped forward to underwrite the entire mural project. Thanks to her extraordinary generosity, mural pendentive areas were—after close to 100 years of waiting—finally designed for the Kentucky State Capitol Rotunda. The donation is the largest in the history of the Capitol.

There are four pendentives, each with allegorical symbolism, historical iconography, and various symbols, landmarks, and representations of the State of Kentucky.

Pendentive 1: Nature: The Bounty of the Land This pendentive celebrates Kentucky’s agrarian foundations with the allegorical figure Ceres, symbol of agriculture and bounty. She is flanked by a jockey and a farmer, further emblems of some of Kentucky’s most notable agrarian symbols. In the background and in the stencils, farmland, race- tracks, and golden wheat indicate a bountiful harvest. The faux bas- relief depicts the aboriginal, pre- western beginnings of the commonwealth.

Pendentive 2: Industry: The Strength of Commerce This pendentive underscores the strength and breadth of Kentucky’s commercial underpinnings. The allegorical figure Mercury (or Hermes) represents commerce and trade, and is joined by a figure moving a barrel of bourbon, a significant element of Kentucky’s economy, and a blacksmith, who signifies the commonwealth’s well- documented history of manual labor, craftsmanship, and industry. Other iconographical elements include a locomotive crossing the Ohio River Bridge in Louisville, the Ashland refineries lining the riverbanks, and a faux- bas relief at pendentive’s base depicting a Native American Paleo- Indian period scene of the prehistory of industry.

Pendentive 3: Culture: The Fruits of Knowledge In this pendentive, the allegorical figure “Muse of the Arts” represents the tradition of music and dance, two elements intrinsic to Kentucky’s cultural heritage. The other figures of the pendentive are that of a teacher and a young girl learning to play the dulcimer, Kentucky’s state instrument, and a Jurist figure representing elements of law and instruction. The background includes elements of the Kentuckian landscape such as the Red River Gorge, and the faux bas- relief at the base of the pendentive depicts Native American men from the Woodland Period at Wickliffe Mounds (in Western Kentucky) playing drums.

Pendentive 4: Civitas: The Light of Progress This pendentive depicts the allegorical figure Athena, the goddess of civilization, progress, and strength. She is complimented by a coalminer, a symbol of one of Kentucky’s signature industries, and a city planner, a representation of progress and enlightenment. The faux bas relief at the mural’s base portrays Native Americans in animal skins hunting along Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace. In the background, symbols of technical and municipal progress such as the Roebling Suspension Bridge, the Lincoln and Davis memorials, and others are highlighted.