Lamps & Fixtures in the Field  

A New Gilded Age

Classic chandeliers combine with newer light sources to restore the grandeur of two Civil War-era institutions in Philadelphia

BY VILMA BARR

O n Philadelphia’s Broad Street stand two buildings, two blocks apart, that have been functioning for a total of 300 years. At Broad and Locust Streets is the Academy of Music, which made its debut in 1857, the year James Buchanan became president and Elisha Otis installed the first elevator in New York City. Two blocks away is the Union League, where the original structure was completed in 1865 at the close of the Civil War. Both classic buildings, unique in the city’s living history, have been enhanced by new lighting.

THE UNION LEAGUE

F ounded in 1862 as a patriotic society to support President Abraham Lincoln, Philadelphia’s Union League first occupied its headquarters three years later and now occupies a square city block. Subsequent Union Leagues founded around the country followed the Philadelphia group’s organizational principles.

The 250,000-sq ft French Renaissance-style structure with its brick and brownstone façade was designed by architect John Fraser. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with additions designed by Horace Trumbauer in 1910-11, the Union League recently underwent an interior renovation directed by BLT Architects.

The renovation focused largely on creating an elegant atmosphere for dining, where traditional would meet contemporary. Included in the $6 million project are a bar, two dining rooms, an open kitchen and the central corridor, totaling 10,500 sq ft. “The main objective for the renovations was to redefine the building in the 21st century while maintaining the League’s high regard for tradition,” says Donna Lisle, project manager with BLT Architects.

Sandra Stashik, principal with lighting design consultants Grenald Waldron Associates, and BLT architect Eric Rahe worked closely with Union League management to interpret its historical image with a modern aesthetic. The former North Marble Room, now called the 1862 Restaurant, is divided into three sections: the bar; a dining room with a wine vault wall; and the main dining room that accommodates a central chef’s table and the adjacent open kitchen. Ceiling height in the spaces ranges from 13 to 14 feet.

The bar area is anchored by a free-standing tufted banquette with four tables and guest chairs, plus additional circular tables in front of the tall front window. To accent the brass and glass of the bar, 1.2-W LED strip lights (3,000K, 2.4 watts per ft) evenly illuminate the entire width of the shelf which has both a top and bottom layer of frosted glass. “They create an up-and-down glow onto the shelves, making the bottles seem to float,” says Stashik.

Square 50-W MR16 halogen downlights are focused on the bar top and dining tables. Stashik selected the fixture’s square outline to accentuate the linearity of the room using a contemporary shape. Recessed 20-W halogen multi-head spot fixtures, AR70, 8 deg, integrate the window’s sheer under-drapery and opaque tie-back drapery into the interior architecture. The portraits of early League members that hang in front of the sheers here and in the larger dining room are highlighted by recessed adjustable MR16 lamps.

Large-scale chandeliers selected by BLT’s designers provide soft fill light. According to architect Lisle, the two dining areas have four chandeliers of the same design, two at 6 ft in diameter, and two at 4 ft in diameter. “The curving rectangular polished nickel arms hold nine candles sleeves with 60-W lamps with 7-in.-high linen shades,” she explains.

DINING ROOMS
In the smaller of the two dining rooms, a glass and brass-frame wine vault forms one wall of the space. It is flanked by a double row of tables with upholstered barrel-back chairs facing the banquettes. “LED strip lighting is built into the millwork of the brass vault and is shielded to prevent glare in the eyes of diners seated closest to the vault,” Stashik explains. “Beyond the door hinges are small niches that accommodate the LED fixtures. Each strip illuminates the face of the bottles on mirrored shelves by casting light forward,” she says. Once again, 1.2-W LEDs, 3,000K, 2.4 watts per ft, were selected.

In the main dining room, the central chef’s table is evenly illuminated by downlights recessed in the overhead coffer. Other tables are pinspotted with 50-W MR16 halogen downlights. Above the semi-transparent sheer panels that separate the two dining spaces are fixtures of the same style used above the window sheers. “They serve to create a sense of space while maintaining an open feel between the rooms,” says Stashik.

Photo: Jeffrey Totaro Photography

THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC

O n January 26, 1857, a Grand Ball and Promenade was staged in Philadelphia to celebrate the opening of the Academy of Music. Now the oldest known opera house in continuous use in the U.S., it was the city’s primary classical performance venue before the 2001 opening of the Kimmel Center a few blocks south of its site at Broad and Locust Streets. Designed by architects Napoleon LeBrun and Gustav Runge in the lavish gilded style of Milan’s La Scala Opera House, the Academy has 2,900 seats on the main level and three balconies. Plays and musical performances are still regularly presented.

A prime component of the intensively researched, two-year, $15 million restoration project was modern lighting technology that reintroduces a lustrous elegance to the Academy ballroom and auditorium. Architect John Trosino, senior associate and project director for KlingStubbins, Philadelphia, notes that the building, like many gas-lit commercial structures of its era, was constructed of a brick perimeter over a wood interior. “Gas lighting was very dangerous, and many of these structures burned to the ground. The fact that the Academy survives today is remarkable.”

Included in the interior restoration program were the finishes and lighting of the 3,200 sqft ballroom, and the auditorium’s 5,000-pound crystal chandelier, one of the largest in the U.S.

Trosino’s historical support team chipped through dozens of layers of paint to reveal the original colors of the ballroom’s walls and decorative detailing. They also discovered that the five 25-ft-high, 12-over-12 glass exterior windows with stained glass arched tops had been walled over at an unidentified point in the past. “Opening of the windows on to Broad Street adds a great deal to the experience of being in the room,” says Lee Brandt, associate principal in the New York office of Horton Lees Brogden, lighting design consultants to KlingStubbins.

THE BALLROOM
On both sides of the 40-ft by 80-ft ballroom is a row of crystal chandeliers, placed to hang so they line up with the center of the windows. In the middle of the space are two multi-arm gilded bronze chandeliers. “The original gas chandeliers in the ballroom were removed in 1900 with the advent of commercially available electric power,” recounts Trosino. “There’s no record we could find of what happened to them. We had to rely on early photographs to have them reproduced.” His researchers consulted the Athenaeum, the city’s repository for historical documentation, to trace the origins of the ballroom’s early years.

They located catalogs from Cornelius and Baker of Philadelphia, a major manufacturer of gas fixtures, which provided an accurate representation of how the chandeliers looked when they were first installed over a century and a half earlier. Mathieu Lustrerie of Gargas, France, specialists in reproduction and restoration of gilded bronze and crystal chandeliers, re-created the ballroom’s new ceiling-hung fixtures.

Photo: Tom Crane

November 2011