José C. Hernández

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Cataloguing an encyclopedic collection of natural building stone

Last week, Dr. Marie-Claude Boileau of the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and Jeanne-Marie Teutonico, former Associate Director of the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), toured the Walker Zanger Natural Building Stone Collection in the basement of the Center for Architectural Conservation.

Penn research associate José C. Hernández (MSHP ’25, right) explains the organization of the collection to Jeanne-Marie Teutonico (right) and Marie-Claude Boileau (far right). Photo by Laney Myers.

From commercial magazines to business records, geology books to stone specimens, the Walker Zanger Natural Building Stone Collection features 4,583 reference samples representing approximately 1,600 unique natural building stones sourced from quarries around the world. The collection includes commercial marbles, granites, limestones, slates, sandstones, onyx, agglomerates, alabasters, basalts, and other building stones. Notable samples include Carrara and Calacatta marble from Tuscany, Roman travertine from Tivoli, Juparana granites from Brazil, and Jerusalem stone from the Middle East.

Founded in 1952 by Leon Zanger and Marvin Walker, the company supplied stone and tile for numerous cultural institutions across the United States, including Italian marble for the Getty Villa in Malibu, CA. To recreate the villa’s ancient Roman floor patterns, the company’s Italian branch acquired antique marble from the Vatican. Other notable projects include the supply of ancient Roman travertine for Louis I. Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, TX) and the supply of Jerusalem limestone and Westchester County marble for the renovation of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY). The company also provided natural stone for numerous private residences and office buildings throughout the United States and was the first to import French limestone into the country.

  • Photo by Laney Myers
  • Photo by Laney Myers
  • Photo by Laney Myers
  • Photo by Laney Myers
  • Photo by Laney Myers

Unique in both size and scope, the collection was donated in 2019 by Jonathan Zanger, director of the Natural Stone Foundation and former president of the stone company, to the University’s Center for Architectural Conservation (CAC). Most of the collection consists of 12-by-12-inch stone “coupons” or slabs, but it also includes a remarkable assortment of ephemera, such as geological posters, commercial magazines, books, and small embedded rock samples originally distributed to customers. This collection will be of interest to researchers across multiple disciplines, including architecture, historic preservation, geology, archaeology, and engineering.

Currently, the collection’s more than 4,500 reference samples are being processed by graduate students Shufan Xiao (MSHP ‘25) and ShenTzu Chen (MSHP ‘25).

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