"To use stone effectively today requires research about the material. This is an exploratory and analytic activity. Selecting a specific stone, determining appropriate finishes, evaluating methods of erecting, and assessing potential design ideas commence with understanding the resources available at the quarry. Stone's fabrication and the architecture that results have changed just as stone has evolved from a product of nature to one of commerce. But even in this new millennium, as fabricators and suppliers adjust to an expanding global economy, both the manufacture of stone products and the practice of architecture retain elements of their cottage-industry origins. Devotion to craft, work performed by groups of similarly inclined people, modest return on initial investment, and a personal vision are still at the heart of these two endeavors.

"Each stone contains traces of its evolution. The quarry is where its potential as a building material can be fully appreciated. Here, one can best determine whether to apply it in conventional or uncommon ways, and whether the finished results will be ordinary or aspire to the lyrical. I derive as much information from quarry visits as from any other factor affecting design . . .

"In expectation of matching stone for the Cleveland Public Library's new Louis Stokes Wing to that of its 1928 predecessor, I visited its source, the century-old quarry in Tate, Georgia. Because the stone had been extracted continuously from the same quarry pit for 70 years, there was uncertainty about finding comparable material. While a match was the intended purpose of the visit, it was not difficult to witness other aspects of this operation.

"During tours of their pits, fabrication shops, and stored marble, I observed a vast array of quarry blocks that had been produced prior to the introduction of saws. The drills used to extract those blocks were so tightly and regularly spaced that the resulting parallel grooves made their exterior surfaces seem fluted. The entry portal to the new Louis Stokes Wing of the library, assembled from the drilled outer surfaces of the quarry blocks makes a visual reference to the fluted columns of its neo-classical predecessor. At the time of the original quarry visit, my intention was to determine if a color and veining 'match' could be made after so many years of operation. Not only did this prove possible, but I also discovered the flutes that suggest a second link between the new construction and the existing historic structure."

Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.