Andreas and Naomi Kunert, co-founders of Ancient Art of Stone, know they don’t easily fit into one category. Together they create one-of-a-kind art installations using natural stone, crystals, and bronze. 

“We’re not stonemasons, we’re not necessarily sculptors, and we’re not mosaicists. Yet we use all of their skill sets,” Andreas says. 

Andreas and Naomi are artists, first and foremost. It’s not unusual for their art pieces to be 25’ tall. An upcoming project will include a 900-foot mosaic wall, with 20 feet surrounding it and large doorways with 350 ton standing stones that one can walk through. 

“From a megalithic point of view, it’s very moving and very to the point,” Andreas adds. 

Listening to clients and to the stone

Their clients don’t always know what they’re looking for at first. While this approach can be challenging for some people, for artists like Naomi and Andreas, it’s an opportunity to develop a design that is 100% personalized for their clients.

Their most recent client approached them to design a piece to add to their home, which was on 40 acres of land. They were referred by their landscape architect to create a focal point at a roundabout leading up to their home down the long driveway. When they first met with the client, it was clear the client didn’t have a design in mind. In fact, the client had no idea what to suggest; no idea of height, scale, or colors. So Naomi and Andreas came back to their studio and leaned into their process by channeling who they met and hearing what was shared.

“What did they tell us about their life? What was important to them?” Naomi asks. 

The discussion moved from what they felt to what might be important. Family and community seemed important. What Andreas noticed from their initial meeting was the couple was the nucleus of a larger family and they cared about the people in their community. 

“We developed this design of a taller stone standing together, which represents them, husband and wife, and then a sphere, emerging from the two stones, which represents this family and this caring community,” Andreas says.  

When presented with the design, the client loved it without any edits. 

Choosing the right stones

Years of experience have taught Naomi and Andreas what’s possible and working with talented engineers has allowed them to create award-worthy projects for their residential and commercial clients. 

The design is one part of the equation. Another is finding the right stones for each project. Those stones come from a variety of places. While they source some stones in their travels, some come directly from the client. In one instance, Naomi recalls a client whose father collected arrowheads that he found on his land. Those pieces were incorporated into a fireplace design as a way to honor their father. Those types of scenarios aren’t uncommon. 

“I think it does depend also on the client, and what their needs are as part of that listening and as part of my interest in health and healing,” Naomi says. “So through that, listening and getting to know them, there are certain stones that will kind of come more forward in my mind.”

Finding connections

Connections to the ancient art of natural stone used in projects are important to Andreas and Naomi. When it comes to the philosophy of their work, Naomi says it’s wise to look at the ancient ways natural stone has been part of all of creation. For Andreas, whatever they build, they build it with longevity in mind and what they create will outlast our generation and generations to come. 

Commissioned designs are completed in their studio in Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island and then shipped to the client’s location. It’s not uncommon for a client to become emotionally moved once they see a piece in real life. That’s when Naomi knows the spirit of the stone is speaking to them. Once they’re in front of the artwork, and allow the piece to speak to them, it moves them in a way that cannot be explained.

One project, two minds

Clients love getting the opportunity to work with both Andreas and Naomi. “I think that’s very unique to us, working together as a couple,” Andreas says. “Naomi has an amazing ability to tune into people. When we meet a new client, she can really zero in on who they are and ask them things that stop them in their tracks, makes them think. And ultimately, when the artwork is produced, and it happens every time, they’re very moved; that this is very specific to them. And this pretty much Naomi initially tuning into them. And it is the two of us, that’s really important.”

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Julia Manglitz, AIA, LEED AP, APT RP, has worked on several building types throughout her career: county courthouses, state capitols and office buildings, university campus halls and community centers. What makes each of these public buildings unique is they’re all landmarks in their communities. Another thing each of them has in common? Almost all feature locally or regionally-sourced natural stone.

Manglitz began her work in Kansas, where limestone is plentiful. As a result, most of the older heritage and iconic buildings showcase local limestone. The featured projects were completed during her tenure as an associate principal of historic preservation at TreanorHL. She recently transitioned to senior architect with Quinn Evans.

Manglitz assessed sixty stone buildings on the Kansas State University campus in the summer of 2019. The buildings ranged in age from 20 to 143 years old; the study identified life-safety and water infiltration issues to help the University prioritize and plan façade repairs. Holton Hall (pictured here) was constructed in 1900 using Kansas Cottonwood and Junction City limestones. Photo credit TreanorHL.

Stone is one of the original regional materials

As an architect focused on historic preservation, Manglitz works with natural stone often. Stone has been used often throughout history for its durability and because it is fireproof. Manglitz notes that natural stone structures were also lower maintenance than wooden structures that required frequent repainting.  

As westward expansion began and immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Italy, England, and Ireland settled in or passed through states like Kansas, many brought with them a history of stonework and masonry. An abundance of usable stone in relatively modest sizes available in quarries throughout the Midwest made it easy to source and use.  

“There were various times of groups moving through. Some settled, some kept moving, but there were generally people around who understood what good material looks like, how to get it out of the ground, and how to get it shaped and put into buildings,” Manglitz says.

The case for regional natural stone

Kansas is known for its limestone. Manglitz notes that one of the most well-known stones is Cottonwood limestone, a light gray-to-cream-colored fine-grained limestone. Cottonwood is the main facing material for many buildings on the University of Kansas and Kansas State University campuses as well as much of the Kansas State Capitol.

Another local stone is Silverdale, a creamy limestone with gold color tones often used in split face veneer stone applications and cut limestone applications due to its tight grain and lack of holes or pits. 

“One of the more interesting stones that we run into a lot at Kansas State University is something called Neva, which is a slightly higher density limestone,” Manglitz adds. “It’s good for rough ashlar work and rock faced finishes.”

Neva is often mixed with Cottonwood, which is softer and can take a tooled finish.

The Kansas Statehouse exterior masonry restoration, completed in 2011, required over 7,000 dutchman repairs varying in size from a few pounds to several thousand. The façade features four types of limestone and seven granite, dating from the original construction to subsequent repairs. The project received a 2018 Tucker Design Award. Photo credit Aaron Doughtery/TreanorHL.

Historic preservation and natural stone

While limestone is readily available throughout the Midwest, Manglitz notes sourcing can still be challenging for historic preservation projects, since blocks are not always actively quarried in the same size that were originally used on a building. 

“Trying to get material in the size that you would like to get it can be a pretty important part of sourcing the stone,” she explains. “When we’re working in preservation, that’s really dictated by the existing building. When we have to go out looking for substitute materials, or substitute stones, it does get really challenging.”

In some cases, Manglitz is trying to match the original color on a building. Other times, she’s looking for a stone that can work with a particular finish. “A lot of the buildings that I work on have some sort of tooled finish to them or they have carvings incorporated, and trying to make sure that you can accurately replicate and get the same feel for it is important,” she says. 

OK State: From 2016 to 2020, Manglitz was the project manager for exterior masonry repairs to the 1917 Oklahoma State Capitol. The restoration included replacing veneer panels, dutchman repairs, crack pinning and injection, cleaning, and repointing. Tishomingo pink granite from Oklahoma clads the first floor, and Hoosier silver-gray from Indiana Quarries the upper floors. Photo credit F. Stop Photography/TreanorHL.

Victory Eagle connects with University of Kansas campus

Manglitz works to recommend stone based on everything from price to aesthetics. She and her team were called upon to work on a 1929 “Victory Eagle” statue in honor of Douglas County residents who lost their lives fighting in World War I. The bronze Victory Eagle monument features a mother eagle with her wings spread wide, defending her eaglets in a nest. 

The statue had seen better days after being stolen and thrown in a ditch before being rescued in the early 1980s. A new base needed to be designed before it could be relocated to Memorial Drive with other war memorials. The client initially wanted a base that wasn’t a native Kansas stone, but Manglitz recommended other stones that would be a more appropriate fit. 

Victory Eagle: The 1929 bronze sculpture, Victory Eagle, moved to a new home along Memorial Drive at the University of Kansas in 2019. The stone pedestal follows the pattern historically recommended by the Victory Highway Association, which organized the memorials in 1921 to commemorate the loss of life in World War 1. Silverdale limestone, quarried in southern Kansas, and Mountain Green granite from Coldspring form the pedestal. Photo credit Julia Mathias Manglitz.

She began by recommending granite for the first two courses. “Granite is going to hold up a lot better; it’s not going soak up de-icing salts that are likely to be used on the sidewalks and it will handle that installation much better than limestone,” she shared, adding that the dark green granite from Coldspring goes well with the overall landscape, since it sits on a site looking down into a forested valley.

The main shaft is Silverdale limestone from Kansas. “Silverdale has a little bit of a warmer color and it tends to go better with the existing architecture,” she says, again emphasizing the importance of regional stone used on other buildings throughout the area. “The more locally sourced stones historically used on the campus have a slightly warmer tone to them.”

Manglitz sees many benefits to choosing locally sourced stone over manmade materials like precast concrete in her work. She points to the lower embodied energy inherent in natural stone when compared to precast concrete as a major factor. “Precast you can do anywhere,” she says. “When you’re using a local stone product, you’re linking yourself to the history of construction within your particular region. It’s partly about place-making. It’s partly about the environment. And it’s partly thinking about durability for the next generation.” 

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Photos appear courtesy of Pavel Bendov/ArchExplorer.  

There aren’t many nearly freestanding buildings in the middle of New York City, but 2 Bryant Park is located on a unique site.

“The building, which is not the tallest building in the area, happens to be open on three sides,” Dan Shannon, architect and managing partner of MdeAS, an architectural company that specializes in commercial office building development, institutional, and multifamily residential developments primarily in the New York City and metropolitan area.

To give some perspective of 2 Bryant Park’s location, it is surrounded by Bryant Park to the south and the Avenue of the Americas on the west.  A public plaza is located on the north side.

The existing building cut the two parks off from one another and had a small, poorly positioned lobby. To better connect these spaces, the central column bay and structural slab were removed from the first and second floor, creating a double-height lobby concourse linking the two parks and pulling pedestrians from one space to the other. 

Shannon and his team wanted to take advantage of the unique footprint of the building and connect the park to the plaza visually. Choosing the right natural stone would prove to be a pivotal decision. They decided to create a two-story high entry lobby passage through the building and elevate that open space using Thassos White marble from Greece along the primary and surrounding walls.

Why Use Natural Stone? 

Shannon is drawn to using natural stone in his projects because natural stone represents quality, durability, tradition, and elegance. He finds we’re also fundamentally moved by natural materials like wood or stone.

“It’s part of our psyche. It’s part of where we came from. It’s part of where we’re going,” Shannon explains. “When people respond in a positive way to an architectural space, it generally has a lot to do with the use of natural materials.”

When he was working on 2 Bryant Park, Shannon was clear in his vision for the spacious lobby and entryway. Those who live, work, and visit New York City are often in a hurry. They need to get from one place to the other and don’t have time to notice the beauty in plain sight. He wanted people who walked into that space to stop—to notice and appreciate the natural stone. He wanted them to respond to it.   

The Different Facets of Thassos White Marble 

Thassos White marble offers different appearances depending on how it’s treated, and that’s one of the reasons he really wanted to use it in 2 Bryant Park.

The predominant walls were made of honed slabs and nylon brushed. “What the nylon brushing did was give it a very nice matte finish,” Shannon explains, “but it also unified the material.”

Shannon reminds us that all natural stone carries some blemishes because it’s a product from nature and not manmade. Through experimentation with their partner in Italy, Roberto Canali from Euromarble, they were able to cover or eliminate some of the blemishes through nylon brushing.

Nylon brushing is also commonly referred to as a leathered finish. “It feels like leather, it’s got a little bit of rippling, but it’s not as rough as thermal,” Shannon adds. “It came into prominence about five to ten years ago and they’re doing it mostly on marbles because it gives the marble a kind of old world look to it. It looks like it’s worn. It gives it a richness.”

Whereas part of the wall features a nearly pure-white sleek matte finish, he and the team wanted contrast for the sides, so they considered black Italian slate.

“Slate has that beautiful cleft finish,” Shannon says. “When it gets pressure along that grain, it cleaves and creates that nice texture cleft surface, which looks like you you’re looking at the topography of the world.”

While the design team and ownership really liked that look, it was decided that the black Italian slate was too much contrast for this room. “We all wanted a more subtle reading.”

This is where the versatility of Thassos White marble came back into play. Shannon went back to Canali to experiment with a different technique on the stone.

“We took large, thick pieces of the Thassos and put them into this hydraulic machine which had a blade on it, which puts pressure along the grain, on top of it, and it shears the marble,” Shannon explains. “What we found was within reason, with a certain size, with a certain amount of pressure, that we could get a positive result in terms of what we were looking for in the appearance.”

The appearance they were going for was that rougher quarry face when you’ve knocked out the blocks.

To achieve the look was the result of a process that involved finding the right size panels that would give them the kind of contours they wanted. “The bigger the panel, the more profile it was, and we couldn’t control it,” he notes. Finding the right size meant they could control the process better by placing the stone panels on wheeled carts so they could move them around. This allowed them to see how they each looked next to each other and get them closer to looking like they naturally belong to each other.

This process also allowed them to work on the panels by hand since some needed handwork to knock down some of the profile. “You may find a perfect piece but it had one bad part,” Shannon says. In that case, someone on Canali’s team would hit it with the chisel and be able to smooth out some of the imperfections or profiles that didn’t work with the adjacent material.

Natural Light Reflections on the Marble 

One of the things Shannon is most proud is how well the natural stone looks on the walls and how the impressive entryway connects to one of New York City’s popular green public spaces.

“It’s kind of like this kaleidoscope connecting these two worlds,” he says. “It really does happen during the day. Sometimes you get the green reflection of the trees that tint the stone because it’s white, and I think that’s just magical. It really is that contrast and the simplicity of it. That is fantastic, you know, just really unique.”

Shannon’s initial vision for the lobby of 2 Bryant Park was for people who walked into that space to stop, to notice and respond to the natural stone. There is no doubt that 2 Bryant Park has carved a name for itself thanks to Shannon and his team who were willing to experiment with what natural stone could do.

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Natural stone is often chosen for residential and commercial work because of its beauty and versatility.  It’s also really nuanced, according to Roger P. Jackson, FAIA, LEED AP, a senior principal and past president of FFKR Architects, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based full-service architecture firm that serves clients primarily in its headquarter city and Scottsdale, Arizona.

Jackson mostly uses granite for his architectural projects, although he’s also worked with limestone. He is drawn to the beauty of natural stone and believes that its beauty goes beyond aesthetics. “Natural stone feels more durable,” Jackson says. “It has a character of strength, stability, durability, and mobility.”

While other materials may be durable, Jackson notes that natural stone in particular has history, character, and feels good to the touch. It can be carved, and texture can be added to many types of stone, adding another level of interest. Texture is often something he’s seeking when designing buildings.

Jackson credits his clients who understand and appreciate the strength and beauty of natural stone and are willing to invest in it. As a result, he’s been able to incorporate some truly remarkable natural stone into his projects.

Why temples and religious institutions request natural stone

FFKR Architects created an entire division within their firm to manage their work with specialized buildings such as religious institutions. The firm often works on temple buildings and special projects for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and these properties often have unique complexities. While their work in this space began more than three decades ago with the upgrade and extensive remodel work on the Hotel Utah Building when it was converted into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, its architects have since designed new temples in cities across the United States and completed remodeling projects on historic church buildings including temples and the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Jackson is one of the architects who directs the Religious Studio. According to Jackson, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints likes to build their buildings out of noble and enduring materials that truly stand the test of time. “They want to build out of long term materials,” he adds, noting they are looking at investments in their buildings that can last 1,000 years. Interiors can be more flexible so they can be remodeled as necessary, but the exteriors are requested to be noble, rich, and beautiful.

Natural stone is often chosen for these reasons.

Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple: Choosing the right stone for the project

One of Jackson’s most recent projects was the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple, which features Deer Isle granite from a quarry in Maine. “It’s this beautiful, kind of medium gray stone that has a little bit of a lavender cast to it,” he explains. “It looks beautiful when it’s dry. It looks beautiful when it’s wet. It’s one of my  favorite stones because it’s really quite unique.”

Many buildings throughout the East Coast are built using this particular stone. There were many reasons why this stone stood out for him and his team to use for this project.

First, many of the stone buildings in Philadelphia feature a grayish granite. Right across the street is the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, which Jackson describes as a fabulous and beautiful building but kind of a brownstone, which is more of a sandstone or a rusty chocolate rich brown. By choosing Deer Isle granite, the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple would match more of the buildings in town and not compete with or match the Catholic cathedral across the street.

Adjacent to the temple are two historic Renaissance Revival icons – the Philadelphia Free Library and the Family Courts Building. The temple is a wonderful addition to the historic Logan Square – one of the five original squares planned for Philadelphia by William Penn.

Secondly and importantly, Deer Isle granite passed the technical and compression testing that would allow it to hold up for centuries to come with flying colors. Some of the technical testing it underwent, according to Jackson, focused on its strength. “How strong is the stone, how much does it weigh when it’s wet, and how saturated can it get? What is its freeze thaw? You run it through, you soak it, freeze it hard, thaw it out, soak it, freeze it,” and they’d repeat the cycle over the course of months specified by the testing requirements.

Finally, the building is clad in cut natural stone and highly detailed in the Neoclassical revival style of American Georgian architecture. The granite was flexible to be carved and textured, even if it wouldn’t be as visible from 200 feet above ground.

“One common cost-cutting feature is the higher up you get, the more dumbed down the details and the carvings,” Jackson says when it comes to building with natural stone. “We did not do that. We knew people would be looking at this building up close.”

Jackson says the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple is a spectacular building in the city and one of his favorite projects.

Natural stone has timeless character

Jackson loves using natural stone for projects and there is another type of stone he’s hoping to be able to use for a project soon: Moleanos, a Portuguese limestone that he says features a beautiful creamy color: “Orange and creamy as opposed to yellow.”

Until then, he’ll continue to reach for the best natural stone for each project because he insists stone has timeless character that never goes out of style. He points to most ancient buildings that still stand tall today because they were built with stone.

“Natural stone has this timeless look whether you carve it, shape it to match a historic classical precedent, or you cut big fat slabs and build with big pieces,” he says.

He looks at the some of the buildings being built today that are more modern or contemporary and while he admits he’s more of a classical and traditional architect, architects and project managers are drawn to natural stone for similar reasons: they want that richness of color and a material with natural character and the timelessness that natural stone provides.

“Natural stone is not going to go away until you carry it away,” Jackson says.

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