Perfume Passage Museum, Barrington, IL
The Perfume Passage Museum harkens back to the Art Nouveau age of the early 20th century, with the floor style recalling the artistic genius of Rene Lalique. Terrazzo is the perfect material for the complicated and intricate design sensibilities of that period.
For Luci Creative, the Perfume Museum offered a chance to work with terrazzo for the first time. “Working with this material was very rewarding from a design standpoint,” said Kevin Snow of Luci. They are now using terrazzo on other projects because it provides flexibility in design. For example, Luci is working on a new project where the floor pattern cannot be done with anything other than terrazzo.
For both the terrazzo supplier and installer, the museum was a challenging but rewarding project. Museums have special lighting and mechanical needs; a high-end museum is much different than doing a hallway in a school, and expectations are high. The terrazzo supplier assisted the designer in making decisions regarding colors by supplying hundreds of samples to get just the right combination that would bring the design to life.
The elaborate design gave the terrazzo installer a chance to really show the high end of what flooring can achieve in a space. There are almost no straight lines in the complicated design, with the many strips and colors requiring close attention to every detail. The museum floor has no premade designs, and tolerances are very tight with regard to strip layout. Cure times could not be rushed, but still had to be on budget.
In contrast to many terrazzo works today that rely on CAD and premade pieces, the Perfume Passage Museum was straight hand work. “That’s really the beauty of it,” said Carmine Tucci of Amici Terrazzo.
Project details
- Location: Barrington, IL
- Project Name: Perfume Passage Museum
- Owner/Client: Jeffrey Sanfilippo, Rusty Hernandez
- Terrazzo Contractor: Amici Terrazzo
- Museum/Flooring Designer: Luci Creative
- Architect: Heitman Architects
- General Contractor: Gibson Custom Homes
- Terrazzo Material Supplier: Terrazzo & Marble
- Photography: Viken Djaferian, FotoGrafix