Lytton Hall

In the Pittsburgh Athletic Association, a landmark piece of architecture designed by renowned architect Benno Janssen (completed in 1911) is a hallway with a monumental ceiling lined with decoratively painted rectangular canvases leading from the Main Entrance Hall to Lytton Avenue.  The four enormous panels (9’ x 14’) and three painted lintels (9’ x 2’) were partially detached and had become darkened, dirty and discolored over time largely due to a badly yellowed later varnish. 

Working from scissor lift baskets, the yellowed varnish was very tough and could only be removed by briskly brushing with a fast-evaporating solvent mixture. Removal of the yellowed varnish revealed long obscured blues, red, pinks, greens and whites. 

Areas of detached canvas were stabilized and re-secured with a thermo-sensitive adhesive and warm tacking irons.  The canvas bay above the Lytton Avenue entrance was more seriously damaged than the others, necessitating taking a high-resolution image of a cleaned canvas bay, and printing it out onto a large scrim.  The printed scrim was adhered to polycarbonate panels and anchored-in closely over the badly degraded original, leaving it in place.  

The dramatic improvement in the color palette of the ceiling enabled a choice of accent paint colors such as the beautiful slate blue crown molding, which mirrors the newly revealed blues in the ceiling panels. 

Client: Walnut Capital