The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh occupies a historic former post office building on Pittsburgh's North Side. The building's masonry shell -- brick and stone construction typical of civic architecture from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -- retained much of its original character but required professional restoration to address deteriorated mortar joints, surface staining, and individual unit failures. Graciano Corporation performed the masonry restoration, completed April 2000, with the goal of reviving the aesthetic effect the building had when first constructed.
Scope of Work
The restoration addressed the full exterior shell of the historic building, combining masonry joint repair, cleaning, and selective replacement of failed brick and stone units.
- Masonry joint repair
- Repointing masonry
- Chemical cleaning of masonry shell
- Acidic cleaner application
- Stonework
- Stone patching
- Individual brick replacement
- Brickwork
- Sealant application
- Coatings application
About the Project
Masonry on public and civic buildings from Pittsburgh's peak building era accumulates decades of surface staining, mortar joint deterioration, and unit-level damage that, left unaddressed, accelerates structural deterioration. At the Children's Museum, the primary challenge was restoring the building's visual integrity while preserving as much original material as possible -- a core principle of historic preservation practice.
Chemical cleaning removed accumulated grime and surface staining from the brick and stone shell, allowing the original masonry color to be assessed for matching replacement units. Deteriorated mortar joints were raked out and repointed throughout. Individual brick units that had failed beyond repair were replaced with matched material. Stone patching repaired areas of surface loss without requiring full unit replacement where the underlying stone remained structurally sound.
The completed restoration returned the building to a condition consistent with its original appearance, supporting the museum's role as a community institution in a prominently located historic building on the North Side.