Seattle Art Museum stone entrance to rise again

SEATTLE – Western Specialty Contractors – Seattle Branch has been contracted to repair the stone facade for the original portion of the Seattle Art Museum in downtown Seattle, Wash.

The five-storey, 150,000-square-foot museum, built in 1991, has an undulating limestone façade with “Seattle Art Museum” incised in large letters. It also features an arcade of arched, triangular and ogee-arched openings trimmed in sandstone, various colored granite, marble and terra cotta pieces at the ground-level entrance.

Stones above the museum’s original southwest entrance and along the University Street side of the building had begun to shift, causing gaps to form in the façade.

Western Specialty Contractors worked with Seattle-based RDH Building Science to identify why the stones were slipping, the type of mechanical connections currently in place, and the process for removal/repair/reinstallation of the affected stones, a Western Specialty Contractors release said.

“With the project just beginning, we are excited to see the restoration of this beautiful museum to its former appearance. Western along with RDH have done a spectacular job at predicting and extinguishing any potential opportunities for future façade failure,” Western Specialty Contractors project manager David Kimble said in a statement.

Once the cause of the slipping was confirmed craftsmen began removing and repairing the anchoring systems for the stones to restore them to their original positions. Western is also replacing 7,700 LF of stone joint sealant, performing stone patching, applying anti-graffiti sealant, and cleaning over 25,000 SF of the façade, the release said.

Western Specialty Contractors, headquartered in St. Louis, is the largest U.S. specialty contractor in masonry and concrete restoration, waterproofing and specialty roofing.