Old Collides with New in Restored Indianapolis Landmark

“The historic monumental stairway in terrazzo—and I have no idea how they did that— stood the test of time,” said Shelley. “There was some cracking and discoloration, but we shined it up and it was as functional and beautiful as the day it was installed.”

One major challenge in the project was the inconsistency of colors in the original terrazzo. While the variations were mostly unnoticeable to the eye, samples laid down to compare would match in one place but not in others.

“Today you expect to set down a sample and for it to blend in anywhere. We found we couldn’t do that with an old floor,” Blakley explained.

The renovated terrazzo looks old, Blakley noted, in that “the colors aren’t in today’s color palettes. It’s a look that’s not often done today.” The classic, retro design unifies old and new throughout the facility.

“While you can’t bring it back to higher standards than what it was built to, you can bring it back to what it was like when first done,” Blakley said, adding that the old terrazzo probably looked “even better than when it was first installed,” and that the blotchiness gives the floor its well-earned character.

“We discovered there’s no reason to be afraid to celebrate historic terrazzo as it is,” Shelley said. “We let its natural patina be; we highlighted it.”

The façade of the original structure with its total of about 5,200 square feet of terrazzo was restored in four months. Along with the treads of the monumental stairway, the original flooring, base, and columns in the main entry required repair and infill to replace damaged areas. Most of the old-fashioned bull-nosing on the stair treads had broken off and had to be reconstructed. Work included refurbishing the back service stairway and a severely damaged exterior covered porch, which had been routed and patched over the years, at the main entry.

New columns were replicated from the originals to replace those missing or damaged. All the old terrazzo was reground and polished and abrasive strips were added to the stairs. The original iron railing on the entry stairs and the two original cast iron light fixtures were also restored. The original cornerstone also still stands.

The use of terrazzo and its longevity in the existing building made terrazzo a natural choice for the new addition’s entry, stairway, and cafeteria dining and serving areas, an installation of a total of 17,000 square feet. New epoxy terrazzo was “the right material for the function in large common areas, and it met our needs with color, patterns, and inlays,” said Shelley, noting that better color consistency is possible with epoxy terrazzo than with the traditional cementitious.

The sleek, crisp lines of the new stairway’s structural terrazzo treads, with painted steel stringers and a glass-and-steel handrail system, offers a distinctly modern response to the restored monumental stair. The radial pattern of the thin-set terrazzo floor in the commons and cafeteria areas draws its inspiration from the geometric curve of the building’s northern curtain wall façade. Short ribbons of accent color along the radial lines, inspired by a similar element on the new limestone exterior, bring visual movement to the new interior spaces.

Shelley’s firm, which specializes in designs for schools, specifies terrazzo regularly for large spaces, a choice confirmed in the results of this project.

“Terrazzo allows for a design of patterns to flow from space to space that you can’t do with other materials, and it is a hard surface with a high level of durability,” he explained. “Your imagination is almost the limit of what you can do with it.”