Craftsmanship Shines in ‘Gingerbread’ Job that Matches University’s 1904 Look
Published Nov. 22-29, 1999, Engineering News-Record, special advertising Section "Subcontracting Today"
Every craftsperson dreams that an owner will someday allow for the true expression of "craft." It doesn't happen often.
At Leonard Masonry, they've lived the dream - in the construction of the 185,000-square-foot, Anheuser-Busch School of Law building at Washington University in St. Louis. The goal: create a building that fits next to classic gothic architecture first put in place for the 1904 World's Fair!
"It's nice when you get someone who appreciates the value of limestone and granite," says Jeff Leonard, president of St. Louis-based Leonard Masonry. "Of course, there is less maintenance with this material, and fire insurance costs drop. But there's no question we're selling a Cadillac."
And a Cadillac is exactly what was expected by the people who run - and attend - Washington U. "When our students pay the kind of money they pay to go here, they want the collegiate look," says Ray Barber, the university's design and construction project manager, "We're known as the Princeton of the West, and for good reason."
How do you create a gothic Cadillac… a near-perfect match for structures fashioned by master craftsmen nearly 100 years ago? "We've worked at Washington University before, and they've been happy with how we've matched the old stone," explains Leonard. "We did some research on the stones. At the turn of the century, the quarries were territorialized; they didn't go far.
"We did a study around southern Missouri to find out from where this granite might have come. We can't guarantee that the quarry we found is the original source, but it matched so well that the people from the university were tickled to death."
Craftsmanship started where stonematching ended. "Each building in the area seems to have been done by a different installer at the turn of the century," Jeff Leonard explains. "Some stones have rounded edges, others are square; some are more convex than others.
"We've tried to match the nearby buildings. There's a lot of hand-pitching to the stones, to make the face look like the building that's alongside."
Is this skill still available? "We've worked hard to recruit and retain the best craftsmen in St. Louis," Leonard answers. "Many of them learned their craft from their fathers and uncles, or honed their skills working next to journeymen on the job. On this job, you''e talking about hand-pitching, on-site, with a set and a hammer. No machine has been invented that can do this. It's part of what makes this building unique.
"We call it 'gingerbread work.' It's so much more ornate. There's so much more detail. And it's a heck of a lot more fun!"
While much of Leonard's work does not involve such hand-crafting and attention to detail, the company is doing what it can to preserve these skills. "We have gone to a bit of trouble to bring young people into our organization," Jeff Leonard claims. "Some of our craftsmen will retire in the next five to 10 years. They feel it is up to them to pass on their knowledge and skills to future generations."
Best of all, Leonard Masonry and its people won applause and appreciation - and more Washington University business! - as a result of this job. "I noticed the care and attention they took laying the stone," says Michael Greenfield, the chairman of the building committee on the job (and Walter D. Coles Professor of Law at the university).
"I was impressed with how they made up the sizes of the stones - so it has the random look. Their people were just a dream to work with."
Greenfield has an additional reason to like the building. When it came time to design the gargoyles, several were "standard," but two were especially crafted for the Anheuser-Busch School of Law. On these gargoyles, artists portrayed the faces of two people: Dorsey Ellis, the former dean of the School of Law...and Greenfield.
Not immortalized was John Serafin, project manager for McCarthy, the general contractor on the project. Even so, he's appreciative of Leonard's work: "There were a certain limited number of sizes for the stone work, and they had to make sure, when they did shop drawings, that everything was sized to be tied in and tucked in," he notes.
Adds Ray Barber of the University: "The thing that is surprising, when you look at the building now, is the detail that they put into each and every stone. Each is hand-worked, so that there is a perfect convex shape to the exterior."