A similar scenario that makes me chuckle (along with covering my head in
certain locals) is that Edward Durell Stone's (infamous for thin panel
Carrara marble facades like Amoco Bldg, Chicago and Kennedy Center,
Washington DC) son is a landscape architect in Florida. A state famous for
crushed marble paved front yards.
Eric Hammarberg
Associate Director of Preservation
Associate
LZA Technology
641 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011-2014
Telephone: 917.661.8176 (Direct)
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email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Follett [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 1:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: If travertine studs married marble babes...
In a message dated 3/15/2002 1:40:12 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
So, what is travertine good for?
The short answer: Quarriers and suppliers.
A longer answer is that it is an interesting appearing stone and works well,
I think, for lobby walls, tables, and countertops. What it does not seem too
well suited to is thin slab (1" - 2" thickness) for exterior building
cladding - particularly in the NY climate.
The problem is not in the stone itself, but the manner by which the stone is
suspended and/or the detailing of waterproofing systems.
I seem to recall someone telling me that at Lincoln Center one section of
the complex is built with a thicker slab of travertine, and a newer section
with a thinner slab. The older and thicker slabs it seems have fewer
problems. The area with the thinner slab being a nightmare. This information
needs to be checked before repeated. I also recall having met the original
supplier and the installer, related by family like so many stone concerns,
and them joking about how lucky they had been that they had sold off a lot
of stone that otherwise they would not have known how to get rid of... but
this is purely apocryphal.
A comparision, for the enterprising scholar, could be looked into the
parallel between the proliferation of travertine as an exterior cladding in
the 20th century and Boss Twead selling off the likewise abhorent Tuckahoe
marble. If Tuckahoe marble were being sold today the question would be,
"What is it good for?" I'm not sure if crushed stone would not be an
appropriate answer for either in some cases.
I suspect though that over time travertine in curtain walls will not endure
as well as brownstone, again, not for the stone itself, but for the way it
is hung... just as with bed lain and face lain brownstone their being a
difference in endurance based on the manner by which the stone is used.
A reason for HC to dislike travertine is that there are no easy anwsers,
from my experience, to repairing poorly performing curtain wall systems.
There seems to be a threshold where the original design fails. I think this
has to do somewhat with the modern trend toward designing out redundancy. A
lack of redundancy impacts on the feasability of maintenance. I think there
needs to be a distinction though between design systems that are chronic in
failure and the maintenance of elements of a system that require cyclical
replacement as they do not have the same period of duration as the facade as
a whole, such as sealants.
I also have seen travertine used in landscaping, such as for retaining wall
caps, where in thick sections (6" - 8" +) it seems to hold up as well as
most cut stones. Being calcareous it is subject to the same acid rain &
pollution factors that trouble limestone. Cleaning with chemicals it needs
conisderation as if it were a much denser and harder limestone. Travertine
is NOT a marble, which is metamorphic, as it is formed through deposition.
Click
<http://www.eni.it/english/notizie/mediateca/special/s_pietro/int_torraca.ht
ml> here: The Conservation of Travertine Façades in Rome
I also believe that travertine is well suited to geysers & fountains.
][<en
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