The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
Gladding, McBean Video
The photographs on the monitor display Gladding, McBean's process of creating the plaster mold and glazed terra cotta pieces, following the original construction methods of the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company:
1) first, the plaster mold is prepared from a clay model;
2) when the plaster mold has dried, malleable clay is pressed into it;
3) then hols are carved out of the clay to create a hollow product;
4) after the clay stiffens, it is removed from the plaster mold;
5) the dried piece is sent to be glazed and fired in the kiln;
6) marked with a symbol that corresponds to its placement on the building, as can be seen on the terra cotta pieces in this case.
