Dartmouth breaks new ground in Orozco murals preservation

Posted 05/26/01

Construction workers and museum representatives at Dartmouth have come together to protect the famed frescos of José Clemente Orozco in the first mid-construction art preservation effort of its kind. The frescos, which depict in vibrant color the mythological story of Latin-America, are located at ground zero of the $40 million Baker-Berry project, which will join Dartmouth's two main libraries. High-tech demolition and excavation activities occurring nearby endanger the frescos, which are one of only three Orozco works in North America and are considered to be worth several hundred million dollars. "I've never been involved in a project in the past 26 years where everybody on the job was told to stop, sit down, and have an art lecture," said Shawn Donovan, Project Manager.

The "art lecture" Donovan refers to is the brainchild of Kellen Haak, Registrar of the Hood Museum, whose responsibility it is to protect the murals during the construction. Workers were asked to sit in the library's reserve corridor where the frescos are located while Haak delivered his lecture. "The idea was to educate people," Haak said. "It's important for everyone to understand not only what the object is made of in terms of materials, but its importance as a representative of Orozco's work and a unique piece of art."

Haak has also implemented other measures: the installation and monitoring of a seismometer attached to flashing lights and alarms, which are triggered when vibration levels increase to dangerous levels. Because such a project has never been attempted before, Haak and the engineers who designed the system had to look to esoteric Swiss studies of plaster buildings to find a standard for how much vibration would trigger the alarm.

According to Haak, there is no way to tell if the measures will prove successful. As powerful, cement-crushing robots are brought in to demolish a wall within mere feet of the mural the potential for damage increases. "I had tremendous anxiety about this," Haak said. "And I still do."

Prophetically, the last panels of the fresco depict construction workers hoisting steel beams into the air. In a short time, as the demolition phase of the Baker-Berry Project is completed, new construction will begin and actual steel beams will be raised by cranes to form the new structure.