Doris Duke Shangri-La House Case Study

Kirsten Travers Entry 8/21/09

Aloha! My name is Kirsten Travers and I am a graduate student at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC). The focus of my academic study is the conservation of architectural painted surfaces, which can range from outdoor murals to period rooms in museums and historic houses. In my first year at WUDPAC, I was introduced to the physical chemistry of artistic materials, especially their chemical makeup, behavior, deterioration, and of course, subsequent treatment and preservation. After completion of the first year, all students are required to complete an 8-week summer internship in their field of study.

I have been lucky enough to spend my summer internship in Hawaii- at Doris Duke’s Honolulu estate, aptly named Shangri La. This unique 1930s home was influenced by the Middle Eastern and South Asian architectural styles Duke adored, and houses her extensive collection of Islamic art and artifacts. My classmate LeeAnn Barnes and I spent our summer working with one of the highlights of the Shangri La collection- an Islamic interior from 18th-century Damascus, known as “The Turkish Room.” Originally constructed for an affluent Syrian home, and reinstalled at Shangri La, the floors and ceiling are composed of interlocking wooden panels heavily ornamented with floral and geometric patterns which dazzle the eye. All surfaces are correspondingly decorated with paint, glaze, and metal leaf, which must have lent a shimmering, lively effect to the original interior.


The Turkish Room, view from the foyer. Shangri La, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Honolulu, HI.

Unfortunately, the painted and gilt surfaces exhibit cracking, flaking, and loss, due to a combination of natural deterioration and exposure to Shangri La’s harsh tropical environment. Although less exposed than an outdoor mural, the Turkish Room is not climate controlled, and therefore prone to fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity - a major source of deterioration, especially for painted wooden artifacts. During our first week, a rolling scaffold tower was erected to access the ceiling in situ, where close examination revealed extensive deterioration of the decorative surfaces. Following this evaluation, we decided to focus our efforts on the ceiling for the duration of the summer.

To document the ceiling, we used a computer digitizing tablet and the vector-drawing program Adobe Illustrator CS4, which allowed us to annotate digital photographs of the ceiling to create a “map” of current conditions and our subsequent treatment. Now complete, this documentation has established a benchmark from which further deterioration of the ceiling can be tracked.

Once documentation was complete, treatment could begin. Flaking gesso and unstable surfaces were consolidated with BEVA Gel that was thinned with water and injected with syringes to compromised areas. Shortly after injection, the hard, brittle flakes relaxed. This allowed us to gently lay the paint and gesso back into its original position using a tacking iron, or sometimes simply the warmth and pressure from our fingertips. Once dry, this flexible adhesive will hold the flakes in place but allow for future movement of the wood substrate in Shangri La’s unregulated environment.

Like an outdoor mural, de-installation of the ceiling was not a possibility, so all documentation and treatment was carried out in situ from the rolling tower. Scaffold work presents its own set of challenges, requiring a certain amount of creativity and flexibility (both physically and mentally!) to ensure its success. LeeAnn and I used a number of tools to facilitate our conservation work this summer, some of which I will mention here, as they may be useful to others involved with large scale projects, mural conservation in particular:

Syringes- working on a ceiling, we constantly “bent over backwards” to deliver a liquid adhesive, which would have been almost impossible to accomplish with a brush. Syringes not only helped us avoid drips, but provided a constant supply of material, without having to repeatedly bend down to re-load our brushes every few seconds.

Laser Pointers- when working on a large scale project, it is easy to get lost in the details. It is important to regularly climb down from the scaffold and view the overall work from a distance. When discussing progress with your co-workers at ground level, laser pointers are invaluable, especially during the customary “you missed a spot” dialogue!

Clip-On Fans and Lights- the scaffold platform becomes pretty crowded once all the people and materials are in place. Small fans and lights were purchased that could be clipped on to the scaffold rail and secured in place with Velcro straps. This arrangement freed up space on the scaffold floor in addition to providing light and air circulation at the ceiling level (especially important during the hot, humid Hawaiian summer!)

As the work progressed, LeeAnn and I moved methodically over the ceiling by rolling the scaffold into a new position every few days. At the conclusion of the summer, approximately 75% of the ceiling was consolidated to prevent future loss. Next year’s WUDPAC interns will be able to take up where we left off, using our Adobe Illustrator CS4 documentation to locate the areas we were not able to complete this summer. Once the ceiling is finished, the remainder of the Turkish Room can be examined, documented, and treated so that it can be preserved and enjoyed by all who visit Shangri La.

My time in Hawaii has been amazing, and I loved working on the Turkish Room ceiling. As a painted surfaces major, this project has provided me with the opportunity to work with a large-scale architectural interior, develop a familiarity with decorative surfaces and their deterioration, and become proficient with methods of digital documentation that I will continue to use throughout my career. The project, the staff at Shangri La, and the island of Oahu have all been wonderful and I am so grateful to have had this amazing experience.

Laura Kubick Entry 7/30/08

I am a Master's Degree Student in the Winterthur/ University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC), and I will be focusing on the conservation of murals. After I completed my first year of study at Winterthur, I headed to my home town of Omaha, NE to see the site of Meg Saligman's mural, Fertile Ground. The mural is being created with advice from WUDPAC. Conservator Julie Reilly from the Ford Center in Omaha took me to the site. At that point Meg had not begun painting yet, but the wall, a type of synthetic stucco, had been primed, and a ground layer of blue Sher-cryl paint had been applied. It was exciting to see the beginning stages of the project and to know that the project will be carried out trying to use the most stable materials available.

Doris Duke Shangri-La House in Honolulu, HI

After visiting the mural in Omaha, I began an eight-week summer internship for WUDPAC at the Doris Duke Shangri-La House in Honolulu, HI. Shangri La was one of Doris Duke's homes and is filled with Islamic Art from all over the Middle East and Asia. The museum is open to the public via guided tours where guests can see the amazing inlaid furniture, ancient ceramics and intricately painted ceilings and doors.

My classmate Lauren Fair and I are working on the last stage (Stage IV) of the conservation of the walls and ceiling of the Damascus Room, a former guest room in the house. The walls are made of wood and the decorative motifs utilize raised gesso decorative elements called al ajami, paint, tin leaf gilding, and varnish. The museum is not climate controlled, and the room suffers from high humidity and temperatures, which have caused the paint and gesso to flake from the wall. WUDPAC interns have been participants in this project during the summers of 2006 and 2007 as well. Stage IV is the final treatment phase for the Damascus Room and upon its completion the room will be reopened to the public. Under the supervision of conservator Richard Wolbers, previous interns have surveyed the condition, mapped damage to the room, and consolidated the room with a 10% solution of BEVA 371 in xylene applied with syringes.

Our tasks are filling and inpainting losses in the al ajami features and losses in the paint. We are using Modostuc as the fill material and Golden PVA conservators' paints. We can apply these to the surface of the walls and ceiling without disturbing the varnish or paint currently on the wall. They can also safely be removed using toluene without harming the images on the walls when the time comes for the walls to be treated again. Similarly, the Modostuc can be removed with aromatic solvents which will not harm the paint.

While the project is not an outdoor mural, it has many similarities to outdoor murals so that the project is strengthening my skills as a future conservator of murals. Just like a mural, it is a large-scale painted work and is not meant to be viewed up close, but from afar. And even though the room is not outdoors, there are large patio doors that open to the outside, incorporating the outdoors as part of the room, just as is the case in the design of the entire house. The work that I am doing requires the use of scaffolding and prioritization about which aesthetic condition issues need to be addressed given the normal viewing distance and the amount of time we have to complete the project. Decisions about the desired level of finish for the room were made in conjunction with Shangri La Curator Sharon Littlefield and Conservator Brian Baade, who is also an instructor for the University of Delaware undergraduate program in Conservation. In addition to learning about important decision-making processes, I am getting an unbelievable amount of inpainting experience, which is a key skill for me in my work. Of course, the use of stable, reversible materials and the experience of consolidation are also important skills for the conservation of outdoor murals as well as an interior piece, such as the Damascus Room.

The summer has been wonderful. Not only am I gaining valuable skills for my career in conservation, but I am also working with amazing people at Shangri La. It has been a fantastic experience. Oh, and the fact that I can go to the beach every day after work doesn't hurt either.