Moderne Age

The Supreme Court of Ohio recently moved into an elegant new home, thanks to the efforts of Schooley Caldwell Associates (SCA) of Columbus, OH. The firm directed the $83.5 million restoration and adaptive reuse of the 1931 Henry Hake Art Moderne-style building from generic state offices into the Ohio Judicial Center. The 416,000-sq.ft. 15-story building now houses the Supreme Court of Ohio and includes courtrooms, office suites, hearing rooms, many offices and the Supreme Court’s Law Library.

Located in Columbus, Ohio’s historic downtown just a block from Capitol Square and on the Scioto River, the rectangular building is the length of a football field but not quite as wide. It has two main entrances, one for visitors on Civic Center Street facing the river and the main entry on the east façade on Front Street. (See Traditional Building, July/August 2004, page 20.)

One of the extraordinary features of this depression-era building is the amount of art integrated into the architecture. Murals, mosaics, decorative plaster, bas-relief sculpture and bronze ornament adorn the building and tell the story of the state, celebrating its history and industry. “This was not a WPA project, but it has a lot of art integrated into the architecture,” says Robert D. Loversidge Jr., FAIA, principal in charge, Schooley Caldwell Associates. “It celebrates the history and industry of Ohio and reflects what the state thought of itself during the dark times of the depression. The artwork shows that the outlook in Ohio was very optimistic.

“The most challenging aspect of any adaptive reuse is fitting the use to the building,” Loversidge notes. “In this case, the use fit the building very well. When we looked at what the Supreme Court needed, it was courtrooms, lots and lots of offices and space to house the largest law library in the U.S. outside of the Supreme Court Law Library in Washington, DC.”

“This building is a marriage of art and architecture and it represents the end of an era,” says Nancy Recchie of Benjamin D. Rickey & Co. of Columbus, OH. “After this, the depression and WWII came along and then we got into Modernism. It has an austere façade, but the interior is filled with symbolic, very significant artwork. Many nationally known artists were involved. It now seems to have found the use it probably always should have had,” she adds. “It works naturally for the Supreme Court.”

“We found that this building had all of the requirements: ornate public spaces that could be made into courtrooms, offices and the state library on the top floors. It was a good fit,” Loversidge says. “The challenge was to make it work and to introduce all of the functionality of the 21st century into a building built during the depression, without having the mechanical equipment becoming a primary feature. We wanted the building to be energy efficient, secure and accessible and to have new mechanicals, without any of these being in your face.”

Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer of the Ohio Supreme Court has been a strong supporter of the project. “The Supreme Court and its affiliated offices needed more space,” he says. “The court was previously housed in a 40-story building in Columbus and had never had its own home. I am a strong believer in restoring historically significant buildings and I felt very strongly about this project.

“It was a perfect fit for our needs,” he adds. “Functionally it is very appropriate and very importantly, the building does reflect the majesty of the law. The architectural detail is really remarkable for a state building and almost all of the building’s 61 murals depict a scene from Ohio’s history.”

The centerpiece of the first floor is a new courtroom that was created in what had been a large hearing room. This was by done by incorporating a new bench, lectern, gallery seating for school children and contemporary court infrastucture. “Court traditions, modern technology and current seating needs were all considerations in the design,” Loversidge notes. Draperies and wall fabrics were replicated from samples of the original materials and a key ceiling element was reflected in the new carpet design. A contemporary sound system and full television capabilities were also added to the room.

The issue of security was also an important part of the first-floor plan. “We take people out of the historic lobby into a separate lobby for the security check,” says Loversidge, “so we haven’t disrupted the fabric of the building.” There’s also an elevator that comes up from two stories below from a tunnel connecting to another building. This comes into a little lobby in the basement where the elevator takes them directly into the security area on the first floor.

While most of the floors were restored, the ninth floor, which houses the judges’ chambers, was completely redesigned. “We took the corridor in the center and moved it to the side of the building so we could create suites of offices on the river,” Loversidge explains. “This also allowed behind-the-scenes circulation for the judges. All of this was done within the context of a relatively rigid building. Everything on the ninth floor, the judges’ floor, is new design and new construction.

“The field of preservation is constantly barraged with the notion that what we do really isn’t design,” he states. “The entire ninth floor was redesigned, as were many other parts of the project. There was a lot of intricate and challenging design work throughout the building.”

The library on the top five floors was another area that was largely redesigned and rebuilt. It had previously housed the state library, which was moved to another facility. “We kept the major historic spaces, the reading room, gallery and the circulation desk, and restored them,” says Thomas R. Matheny, AIA, project manager. “The previous stacks could not accommodate the Supreme Court Library and they were dark and inaccessible. We took the old stacks out and designed a much more meaningful type of architecture to take its place. The previous floor-to-floor heights were very tight,” he adds. “We created multi-story spaces to relieve that situation.”

“In addition, there are a number of places where windows traverse two floors, so we held the floor structure back away from the windows to get more natural light into these multi-story spaces.” New light fixtures, millwork and marble detailing were added to enhance the historic fabric of the library. The ductwork was hidden by putting the supply in benches along the outside walls and the return behind pilasters. “We wanted to keep the floor structure as thin as possible to maintain the floor to ceiling heights, so we didn’t want to put the mechanicals in the floors,” Matheny explains.

Gary Steffy Lighting Design of Ann Arbor, MI, directed the restoration and renovation of lighting in the historic areas of the building. In the courtroom, quartz up-lighting was added into the period pendants and small dimmable fluorescent strips were hidden behind a cove molding detail to provide subtle accent lighting on the upper mural band. “Our main goal was to update and freshen the lighting in the building in a way that was very sensitive to the original lighting and imperceptible as anything but historic,” says Gary Woodall of Gary Steffy Lighting. “When we first went into the building, the lighting levels were very low, about what you would find in a French restaurant. We went through each space, looked at existing lighting equipment, and worked out ways of introducing newer fluorescent lighting into the existing lights, without creating a lot of glare.”

The historic lighting fixtures were restored and replicas were manufactured by St. Louis Antique Lighting Co. “The bronze and wood fixtures in the courtroom were falling apart due to the heat produced by overlamping,” says Gary Behm of St. Louis Antique Lighting Co. “We had to completely take them apart, then rebuild and refinish them.” The new fluorescent lighting supplies more light and is much more energy-efficient and longer lasting than incandescent lighting, he explains. “When you do a cost analysis of a lighting renovation using energy-efficient lamping, it is not unusual to get a payback within five to 10 years.”

While Recchie and Jeffrey Darbee of Benjamin B. Rickey & Co. were responsible for the historic preservation, McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory of Oberlin, OH, managed the mural conservation in the building. The mosaics and decorative metalwork throughout were cleaned and repaired as needed under the direction of Lauren Burge, AIA, of Chambers, Murphy & Burge of Akron, OH.

“Our role was the preservation of the mosaics and the restoration of the architectural metals,” says Burge. “There is a lot of wonderful ornamental metal in the building, ranging from stock 1930s pieces to fine art. The bronze pieces were analyzed and treated individually and the mosaics were all given a very good cleaning, which made them much brighter. Years of people smoking and atmospheric dirt had really darkened them.”

One of the goals of the project was to carry the artwork forward, according to Loversidge. “The artwork depicting the history of Ohio stops at 1930,” he says. “We have commissioned a number of Ohio artists to fill in some of those gaps and to let people know that this is now a judicial building.” For example, Andrew Scott, an Ohio artist who now teaches at the Savannah College of Art and Design, will create a 60-ft. stainless-steel gavel, a symbol of justice that will be installed in one of the reflecting pools outside the building. An artist from Columbus, Malcolm Cochran, is creating a piece that spells out words like “justice” and “equality” in bronze. This will be installed in the other reflecting pool.

Inside the building, a new life-sized bas-relief sculpture by George Danhiers of Akron, OH, will be installed outside the main courtroom. “It shows all different types of people of all ages in Ohio and will surround a tablet that displays Ohio’s Bill of Rights,” says Loversidge. “The idea is to show that Ohio is a diverse place and a place where the law is celebrated.”

SCA has also commissioned another artist from Columbus, OH, Ron Anderson, to do six wall panels depicting the history of the Western legal system for the library. “All of these pieces are being paid for with private funds donated for this purpose,” Loversidge adds. “We are very excited about this ongoing effort.”

Another part of the building that is ongoing is a new Judicial Education Center that is being developed for the first floor. Designed for school children and anyone interested in law, this interactive museum will cover the history of judicial system and how it works. “Chief Justice Moyer wants to make the building, its artwork and information about the state’s judicial system available to the public,” Loversidge points out. “The Judicial Education Center is one way of doing that.”

After two years of planning and three years under construction, the Ohio Judicial Center was ready for the Supreme Court to move in in 2004. The official dedication on May 15, 2004, included dignitaries such as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court William Rehnquist and noted historian William Seale who also consulted on the project. Matheny sums it up: “We had a wonderful piece of raw material to work with. We also had two of the best clients, the Ohio Building Authority and the Supreme Court, and we had a very good construction manager. It was a very positive experience.” – Martha McDonald

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Last Updated February 15, 2008