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Golden Age
Golden Age
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Golden Age
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Springfield, Illinois’ Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, built in 1927, once boasted a sanctuary worthy of its European ancestors. But the decades had dimmed its luster. It took a team of restoration experts to bring it back to its original splendor.For help, the church called upon Wisconsin-based Conrad Schmitt Studios (conradschmitt.com), a family firm that’s been in the craftsmanship business since 1889. Together with Springfield’s Graham and Hyde Architects, the team developed a palette of 18 custom-mixed colors, including warm gray, taupe and ivory tones, lavishly accented with 23-karat gold leaf. The colors complemented the existing finishes of the cathedral’s marble features and scagliola.The biggest undertaking was the ceiling, where 190 five-foot coffers each needed a nine-layer application, including stenciling, painting and carefully tinted aluminum leaf. To achieve an opulent Old World look, the team used multiple Sherwin-Williams coatings, including ProMar® 200, ProGreen® 200, Duration Home® and a Faux Finish Glazing Liquid, adding depth and dimension to bas-relief panels and moldings.Intricate, complicated painting was made more so because the ceiling coffers also served a structural purpose: Many hold lights or canvas acoustic panels. The canvas panels (a combination of flat and concave surfaces carefully disguised in the coffers) dramatically improved the organ-music quality. Both Graham and Emery were gratified when they weren’t able to tell visually which coffers housed acoustic panels.Others marveled, too. The project has won several awards, including the Religious Architecture-Restoration Honor Award and the Painters and Decorators Contractors of America Commercial Restoration Award.