designslinger - Word of the Week: scagliola
[scagliola, lobby entry, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
scagliola [skal-YOH-luh] n. a technique using pigmented plaster, often mixed with marble dust, finished and glazed to imitate marble.
[scagliola, lobby entry, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
Back in 1992, when those columns were first excavated from the concrete shells wrapped around them when the Congress Street arcade was tunneled through the first floor of the Auditorium Building, they were given a much better-executed faux-marble finish than what they have today, but even then, they weren't true scagliola, just cleverly applied paint & glaze. If you want to see true scagliola, the kind that was good enough to fool a touring geologist, you need to go inside. The thirty-foot high columns on the Auditorium Theatre's main stairway are the real thing, or as much a 'real thing' as a manmade material created in direct imitation of a natural material can be: that is, plaster colored while it's still wet, formed, dried & polished-in-place like real marble. Check it out next time you're there.
Thanks for the tip. We'll be sure to check it out, and hope anyone who gets inside does the same.