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Milton Glaser Mural Restoration Documentary Script MILTON GLASER VO:
"I thought first in terms of color.
. . . Not a new idea, and certainly not my idea, but I thought a band of color going
around the base of the building might be interesting as it changed
and redefined what that base might look like."
MILTON GLASER (VO): "And then during the process it occurred to me that, at night,
if the lighting changed simultaneously and you had the light effect the color,
that you had two kinds of color change-one horizontal and one spatial.
. ." MILTON GLASER (VO): Architecture, color, light, all working together
to produce something that hadn't been seen.
(MUSIC UP.
TITLE) NARRATOR: In 1974 the U.S. General Services Administration commissioned graphic
artist Milton Glaser to create a mural for a new federal building in downtown Indianapolis.
NARRATOR: Designed by architect Evans Woolen,
the Minton-Capehart Federal Building would become one
of Indianapolis's most distinctive landmarks.
NARRATOR: Through GSA's Art in Architecture Program,
artist and architect were brought together in a successful collaborative effort.
Glaser's mural-which he titled
"Color Fuses"-would become a vibrant counterpoint to Woolen's architecture.
RICHARD McCOY (VO): "Milton Glaser said that he wanted to create a mural
that would express a new sense of openness and a new kind of government."
"I think that's a really aspirational thing to make in a public artwork.
I think so often times artworks are figurative in memorial, that we want to hold
on to these clear ideas of what happened in the past, so to make an artwork that's trying
to express an abstract idea through color in a mural is a really courageous thing to do."
NARRATOR: At 672 feet long and 27 feet high, the artwork wraps the entire lower level
of the federal building, making it one of the world's largest contiguous murals.
NARRATOR: After nearly 40 years of exposure to harsh environmental conditions,
the mural's finish was worn, its rich palette of colors had faded,
and its specially designed lighting system no longer worked.
Color Fuses had nearly disappeared from public view.
NARRATOR: In 2012, GSA restored this important work of art, giving it the vitality
that Glaser and Woolen originally intended.
CONNIE ZIEGLER : "Evans Woolen's buildings don't all look the same.
They were built to fit into their context.
And nothing is more obvious, when you start to think about it, than the federal building.
He wanted to fill the block so that it made this plaza surrounded by.
. . CONNIE ZIEGLER (VO) : ". . .the Federal Building.
. . CONNIE ZIEGLER (VO): ". . . the Library.
. . CONNIE ZIEGLER (VO): ". . . the War Memorial building.
. . CONNIE ZIEGLER (VO) : ". . . and the Scottish Rite across the street."
CONNIE ZIEGLER: "He kind of looked at the top of the War Memorial which is a stepped pyramid
and he inverted it and made an inverted ziggurat that steps in at every floor."
CONNIE ZIEGLER (VO): ". . . I've always been surprised.
. . that someone who's working in making a building
in the brutalist style-a style that's typically unadorned, only relies on light and shadow
and geometric forms-has a very colorful mural wrapping the base of it.
MILTON GLASER: "What the problem was, the architecture itself was so powerful,
so dominant and so fully realized.
It has a form that is extremely aggressive.
. . In short, it is so full already that the introduction
of another dimensional element would be enormously difficult.
. . . I said to myself, maybe it shouldn't be an object, maybe it shouldn't be sculptural.
Maybe it shouldn't even quite be painting.
Maybe it should be more mutable; maybe it should be more changing.
Maybe it should be light!
And with that idea I thought of light and color.
. ." ". . . We did some studies on how various forms
of blended light would change blended color,
would change under the influence of a changing light."
MILTON GLASER (VO): ". . .We started the process, of course, by painting the walls,
and the walls when they were painted looked pretty good except for the fact
that they weren't exactly right
and the materials used weren't exactly right, and they began to fade.
And then they put in a light system that wasn't exactly right.
. . And so it sat there quietly for a very long time.
. ." NARRATOR: Reviving such a large, important piece of public art required the talents
and expertise of a diverse team of professionals.
The first step in the restoration process was to determine whether
or not the original mural could be saved.
THOMAS MOORE: There was a conservation study done to see if it was possible to conserve it,
but it was determined that with the color fading and the amount of damage
that replication was the best way to go."
MILTON GLAZER (VO): "Redoing it meant making it what it was intended to be.
And then of course it became something totally different than what had first appeared.
It became what I had imagined it might be."
THOMAS MOORE (VO): ". . . they had a conservator with museum experience match the colors
to what they were originally, then we subsequently used those specifications to work
with a local paint supplier to match the colors."
CHRIS COLOMBE (VO): "It's not like a bedroom where you can kind
of go in and paint the walls easily.
We have to get up on scissor lifts, go up 24 feet in the air.
You're not just able to walk around and do things.
It's slow process."
THOMAS MOORE (VO): "It would be ideal if you had a 30-foot arm
so you could give one sweeping motion, but realistically you have to work
from lifts that often have jerking motions.
. . And you're working with equipment that's often temperamental.
If your spray equipment isn't working perfectly, any flaw will be shown."
CHRIS COLOMBE: "I've not done anything quite like this.
I have worked on what they would call restoration projects-churches,
theaters, that kind of stuff.
But that usually involves stencils and leafing and glazing,
so nothing this massive where the canvas is huge.
So this is pretty unique."
NARRATOR: Matching and blending the mural's 35 bands
of color were only half the restoration challenge.
Glaser's original design called for a special lighting system that would enhance
and highlight the mural at night.
But the technology of the time wasn't up to the task.
MILTON GLASER: "The lighting was kind of yellowish and the mutability
of the color didn't quite match what we had in our minds and as a result of that,
it kind of half worked and nobody was exactly satisfied, least of all me."
ZACH: "In the mid-seventies when this was commissioned,
custom lighting control were hand-built massive dimmers.
. . the original system was ahead of its time, which meant it didn't work very well."
NARRATOR: Advances in digital technology led to the installation of a sophisticated,
computer-controlled system that uses energy-efficient LED lights.
ZACH (VO): "These are light-emitting diodes; they can have different color temperatures.
We had experimented with: Should we play with the color of the light?
. . . What surprised me was that it didn't need my dabbling.
It stood by itself and it just made our job simpler because, I think,
of the success of Milton Glaser's palate.
I think it's a very successful installation on its own and all of what we really tried
to do was stay out of the way so we could let the building breathe and move the way I think,
I hope, Glaser had thought it would look" MILTON GLASER: "The idea of light as a moving element
in architecture is kind of a new idea and to bring the aspect of color, light and motion
and combine that with something as permanent as architecture seems to me to open the door
to another consideration of what light and architecture might do when combined."
ZACH( VO): ". . . if you come here at night and look at some of the historic buildings that are
in this area, they also have saturated color light and the building really sits
in the footprint of this town and these monuments that are close by.
It's a really good fit and the enhanced color just brings it back
to work well with its neighbors."
CHRIS COLOMBE: "When you're grinding through the night, you're just trying
to get a particular project done.
But then when you do step back and you think about, "Well, this is a really important piece
of public art for Indianapolis," then the responsibility kind of hits you and it's like,
'Wow, this is a really big deal.'" ZACH (VO): ". . . what I hope this city and people who come
to this city will look at is here is a city and here is a government that has taken care
of its building because you can enjoy it all over again.
. . and if there's anything to take away I hope the public determines
that it was worth both the time and effort .
. to make something not only a destination but something to take pride in."
CONNIE ZIEGLER: "That's not a building that would be built now.
It's a building of its time.
That piece of artwork is very much a piece of artwork of its time.
And so it's a living time capsule and that's the importance of restoration.
Architectural restoration, art restoration are to me key components
to being an American and being good stewards."
MILTON GLASER (VO): "What I wanted to do, excuse me for this, was create a miracle.
I wanted to create the impression to a visitor, someone who is walking by,
that a miracle was occurring because life is a miracle,
color is a miracle, and form is a miracle.
That they stopped and looked at it and a miracle was taking place.
A pink was changing to a yellow to a red to a blue to a gray right before their eyes.
I hope that's what happened."
FADE OUT. 1