Royal Academy of Arts, London
The Project
Our plaster ceiling moulding and restoration expertise were called upon when we were asked to replicate existing plasterwork, repair areas in multiple rooms and dismantle the historic ceiling in the British Academicians Room. We took the ceiling down in sections and later reassembled this ceiling in the newly constructed wing where the BA room has been replicated. We had to store the 150 ceiling pieces in a secure unit while we worked on producing bespoke moulds to recreate missing or damaged sections. We cast moulds of each section we took down, to ensure we safeguarded the original ceiling.
We removed enrichments from the ceiling in the Wolfson British Academy room but the plaster dome had to be removed as well. On close inspection we identified that the support framework which was a timber frame and eml system could not be cut down without the dome being destroyed. To overcome this challenge, we took a squeeze and mould of a cross section of the original dome and replicated this in our workshop.
We created new decorative arches to match existing and manufactured and installed a bespoke fibrous plaster niche in the main entrance. We surveyed and secured the original ceiling in the Lecture theatre and repaired and replicated existing mouldings.