Fire Damage Conservation
Spreckels Theatre
San Diego, CA

The Theatre opened in 1912 as a vaudevillian hippodrome. Its owner, John D. Spreckels, was a wealthy developer in southern California and well known in both northern and southern California business and society circles. His new theater precipitated the birth of San Diego’s performing arts culture and helped to establish San Diego as a major city in California. The theatre's interior displays richly embellished polychrome plaster features, decorative painted finishes, and five ceiling murals painted on canvas.

ARG/CS was contacted to undertake a large-scale soot cleaning of the decorative painted features of the theater, including the murals, after a fire had occurred in a portion of the building. The project was under a tight time constraint and had to be completed in 10 weeks. After scaffolding was installed, the ARG/CS team, consisting of architectural conservators, mural conservators, and decorative painting specialists, worked to finish the project ahead of schedule, as requested by the owner. Project tasks included reattachment of loose and detached canvas, repainting of portions of the murals where necessary, dry soot cleaning of interior painted surfaces and repainting multilayered decorative finishes damaged by water infiltration.