Looking Back and Looking Forward: Sixty-two Years of Historic Preservation at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute
By Dawn Rogala, Ph.D.
With thanks to Katelynn Averyt, SCRI Disaster Response Coordinator; Carol A. Grissom, MCI Senior Objects Conservator; Katharyn Hanson, Ph.D., SCRI Team Lead and Head of Research; Jessica S. Johnson, MCI Head of Conservation; Brian M. Lione, MCI International Cultural Heritage Protection Program Manager; and Ann B. N’Gadi, MCI Technical Information Specialist
As part of their active commitment to collections care, research, and training, the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) are dedicated to supporting historic preservation efforts in the U.S. and worldwide. In April 2024, SCRI became part of MCI under unit director Dr. Sanchita Balachandran, bringing the groups’ combined experience, resources, and programming to benefit historic preservation efforts at the Smithsonian and beyond. MCI and SCRI are currently working on a new mission, vision, and strategic plan that combines their strengths and resources, and they look forward to announcing their new partnership to the Smithsonian and the larger community as a unique resource in cultural heritage protection. This article looks at the wide variety of projects MCI and SCRI have been doing as separate entities; their newly combined expertise places MCI in a strong position to continue supporting historic preservation.
Established in 1963 as the Conservation Research Laboratory (later names include the Conservation Analytical Laboratory, and the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education), the Museum Conservation Institute is the center for specialized technical collections research and conservation for all Smithsonian museums and collections. As the only Smithsonian resource for technical studies and scientific analyses for most of the Institution’s national collections, MCI staff provide support for the most challenging collection and object care issues and combine their knowledge of materials with state-of-the-art instrumentation and scientific techniques to provide technical research studies and interpretation of artistic, anthropological, biological and historical objects. Through a range of Conservation and Cultural Heritage Protection programs, MCI staff conduct conservation projects, technical studies, and research to further the preservation and technical understanding of the Smithsonian's collections and provide education and technical assistance for the protection of cultural heritage world-wide to improve global cultural stewardship in partnership with U.S. federal agencies and international organizations. MCI’s Science Research and Technical Studies groups conduct imaging and materials analyses for museums, research centers, and offices across the Smithsonian to develop novel tools and applications, elucidate provenance, composition, and cultural context, and improve the Smithsonian’s collections care capabilities.
(Left) National Museum of African American History and Culture South Fountain in 2017, shown early in the morning before the water is turned on. White deposits on the granite mask bronze lettering set into the first row of pavers at left. Photo by A. Elena Charola for Smithsonian. (Right) South Fountain in operation, showing ripples from the stone ridges. Photo Grissom, October 23, 2017.
(Left) Lettering in the Baldwin quotation shown in 2017 with water off (Right) white calcite deposits obscure the lettering except for the darkened letter “E” in which lacquer appeared absent and calcite deposits were not apparent. Photos by Carol Grissom for Smithsonian.
MCI’s historic preservation projects include collaboration across the Smithsonian Institution’s 21 museums, the National Zoo, and renowned research centers in science, the arts, and the humanities, including close work with the Architectural History and Historic Preservation team at the Smithsonian’s Office of Planning, Design, and Construction (OPDC). Projects at MCI have included the preservation of the 1846 Smithsonian Building Model by James Renwick, Jr.; the conservation of fountains and statuary at the Arts and Industries Building, the Mary Livingston Ripley Garden, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC); assessment of environmental conditions and treatment for the National Museum of Natural History (1911), the Renwick Gallery (1861), and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama; marble consolidation at the Old Patent Office Building (1867, now home to the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum); and assessment of damage at Smithsonian Museum Support Center collections storage facilities following the 2011 DC earthquake. MCI has also worked on fountains at the U.S. Capitol, assessment of in situ murals for the U.S. Department of the Interior, and assessment of conditions and treatment at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (Alfred B. Mullet, 1888). Recently, MCI has problem-solved concerns about the south fountain at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, determining that the increasing illegibility of bronze letter quotations by James Baldwin and Frederick Douglass was caused by calcite deposition from recirculated ground water and loss of protective coatings on the lettering. To support recent renovations at the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of Asian Art, MCI developed methods for removal of stains caused by hand oils at high-touch surfaces like walls and handrails on the buildings’ historic interior Tennessee pink marble.
MCI is also involved in the long-term study of material staining, microbial growth, and biodeterioration on Smithsonian buildings along the National Mall including the Smithsonian Institution Building (also known as the Smithsonian Castle, designed by James Renwick, Jr., 1855), the Arts and Industries Building (Adolph Cluss and Paul Schulze, 1881), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Gordon Bunshaft, 1974), the National Museum of American History (McKim Mead & White, 1964), and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI; 2004). The most extensive project began in 2009 with MCI scientists and conservators asked to investigate black staining on the NMAI building's exterior Kasota sandstone, found to be caused by algae growing on areas with prolonged wetness after rainfall a few years after the building’s inauguration. Following testing with biocides, a quaternary ammonium compound was applied on stained areas in 2011, 2016, and 2022, which began to darken about two years after application. Costly cleaning and the relatively short duration of biocidal remediation led to the test installation of zinc strips and sheets to kill and inhibit biocolonization. Studies in 2016 and 2018 focused on sandstone cladding at the Smithsonian Castle and the Renwick Gates at the Enid Haupt Garden revealed blue-black coatings of birnessite (a manganese oxide), often referred to as rock varnish. The studies suggested that the pronounced varnish on the south faces of the Seneca sandstone structures may be related to environmental factors including heavy traffic on Independence Avenue and/or sun exposure. Test treatments were also performed to halt the conversion of calcium carbonate to the more soluble calcium sulfate when historic concrete floral medallions on the Arts and Industries Building were exposed to rain. Following this research, MCI produced a guide for American Geological Society to identify quarry sources and stone characteristics for building stones on the National Mall. In 2021, the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press released an MCI bilingual manual on using simple test methods for built heritage evaluation.
The Museum Conservation Institute’s international historic preservation work includes partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Cultural Antiquities Task Force on cultural heritage anti-trafficking training for federal law enforcement and working with government and academic partners on a variety of capacity-building programs in the U.S. and abroad. For example, MCI staff have collaborated on Iraq’s historic preservation efforts since 2014. This work is based on a partnership with the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage (the Institute), an educational institution established in 2009. Historic preservation is part of the foundation of the Institute, and is included in the founders’ earliest concept plans. As originally scoped in the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project (ICHP), a U.S. Embassy-funded effort from 2008-2011 to revitalize the country’s heritage sector, the Institute was to have two main paths of study: object conservation and historic preservation. The first group of advisors to the Institute project included the Chief Historical Architect of the National Park Service, who consulted on the course curriculum, provided suggestions for the design and provisioning of the preservation of teaching spaces at the Institute, and brought the University of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation Program to the project to provide additional input to the curriculum.
Historic preservation courses were taught at the Institute in 2010, and an ‘architectural site conservation’ course was added to the curriculum in 2012. Formal historic preservation education at the Institute ended in 2014 when the arrival of ISIS (aka ‘Da’esh’) led to a temporary pause in all activities at the Institute. Coursework restarted in mid-2015 with a disaster preparedness and response focus and a shift in the Institute’s approach to provide more participants with a basic introduction to prerequisite topics in cultural heritage conservation. After two years of delays due to ISIS, the Smithsonian unveiled the first ‘Fundamentals of Heritage Conservation’ (FHC) course in 2016 to participants from across Iraq. This inaugural course, funded by the U.S. Department of State, included a teaching module on the basics of architecture, engineering, and preservation topics based on the previous longer-form architectural conservation courses. The FHC course was delivered again in 2019 and 2020 (funded by the JM Kaplan Fund and the Getty Foundation, respectively), the latter course disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Students from the Smithsonian’s FHC courses and previous Institute educational programs work throughout Iraq.
The Smithsonian also supports two large projects where Institute graduates are actively working on rebuilding sites and institutions heavily damaged by ISIS, including the recovery and stabilization at the site of Nimrud and the recovery and renovation of the Mosul Cultural Museum. At Nimrud, staff of the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage are recovering and stabilizing neo-Assyrian sculptures remains and the restored structure of the Northwest Palace. The Mosul Cultural Museum project is a collaborative effort among the Smithsonian and partners at the International Alliance for Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), the Louvre Museum, the World Monuments Fund, and the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to recover all remaining objects from the looted museum and support the conservation of objects and the complete renovation of the historic museum building designed by renowned Iraqi architect Mohamed Makiya. MCI’s work in Iraq relies on collaboration between MCI staff and colleagues at museums and research centers across the Smithsonian, including the Smithsonian’s Office of Global Affairs (OGA) and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI).
Now part of MCI, the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative’s guiding mission is to protect cultural heritage threatened or impacted by disasters and to help U.S. and international communities preserve their identities and history. SCRI aims to achieve this mission by raising awareness of cultural heritage issues, emergency action to prevent cultural heritage from being destroyed, training the global community to develop the skills needed to protect cultural heritage, and research to better understand the causes and responses to cultural heritage damage. In the years since its formation following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, SCRI has responded to dozens of disasters that threatened or impacted cultural heritage—in Mali, Egypt, Nepal, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and more. SCRI co-chairs the Heritage Emergency National Task Force with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Together, this public private partnership activates a network of more than 70 federal agencies and private nonprofit national service organizations to better protect cultural heritage in the USA’s states, tribal sovereign areas and territories. SCRI also partners with university- and museum-based researchers at institutions across the country to document and quantify the destruction of cultural heritage, convene symposia to better understand risk factors to cultural heritage in emergencies, and publish scholarly articles discussing topics such as emergency response, architectural preservation, forensic documentation, and heritage in conflict.
In February 2022, SCRI mobilized its vital networks in the battle to save Ukrainian heritage. As the first requests for cultural assistance came in from partners and practitioners in Ukraine, SCRI tapped into the resources of the Smithsonian to assemble teams of experts to advise Ukrainian cultural stewards as they took emergency measures to protect their collections. While Ukrainian heritage stewards took measures to protect their collections in the country, SCRI convened its research partners to remotely gather evidence of cultural heritage damage in Ukraine using satellite imagery analysis and open-source research. In July 2024, SCRI hosted and moderated a series of meetings dedicated to understanding the challenges Ukrainian heritage specialists face following damage to historic sites and buildings caused by missile strikes. SCRI requested the participation of built heritage experts at the Getty Foundation, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the International Scientific Committee on the Analysis and Restoration of Structures of Architectural Heritage (ISCARSAH) to help guide the discussions and determine topics for a practical workshop for Ukrainians.
Satellite image of the Transfiguration Cathedral, Odesa, Ukraine (dated 24 July 2023). Damage is visible across the structure’s roof. Arrow points to the building. Source: Airbus SE, Image © Airbus.
Click on the circle on the image to see an interior view of the Cathedral (taken 29 July 2023). The point of impact is visible on the left. The ceiling and floor appear destroyed and the surrounding walls damaged. Source: Matvii Pohranychnyi, Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab.
SCRI has worked closely with the newly formed Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab (HeMo) and partnered with HeMo to moderate a series of online forums and workshops to address critical needs faced by Ukrainian archaeologists, built heritage specialists, and future cultural responders. In September 2024, SCRI and HeMo held the first in a series of workshops focused on immediate threats to Ukrainian architectural heritage, such as missile impacts, trenching, looting, site stabilization, and working in mined areas. In October 2024, in cooperation with HeMo, SCRI hosted an online, international workshop dedicated to the challenges of safeguarding architectural fragments utilizing case studies of sites in Ukraine, with partners from the U.S. Department of State and UNESCO providing practical recommendations on safely working in and around damaged structures. Ukrainian colleagues from organizations such as Odesa National Art Museum, Urban Development Platform in Kharkiv, the Museum for Change Ukraine, and HeMo gave reports on their experiences and their needs going forward. A final workshop in November 2024 focused on satellite monitoring for archaeological sites and included case studies from SCRI and the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. SCRI is currently working on response and research in support of cultural heritage at risk in Sudan, Ukraine, North Carolina, and California.
Looking ahead, MCI plans to think more broadly about historic preservation and its ties to climate change and sustainability, and work in collaboration with a broad range of SI colleagues (including OPDC) and national and international partners on data-driven approaches to the responsible protection of buildings and collections. This future-focused work responds to Smithsonian-wide efforts in support of Life on a Sustainable Planet, and our obligation to innovate in research, practices, and training to assist the people and places that define our shared cultural heritage.
More information about past and future projects at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative can be found at mci.si.edu.