DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — A Doylestown, Bucks County museum is getting a close-up inspection for over a century of rain damage.
The Mercer Museum was built of concrete in 1916, and all those years of rain damage have taken a toll on the windows, dormers and skylights. Cory Amsler, vice president of collections and interpretations, said the building was made from concrete to protect the artwork inside from fire.
"The nature of concrete architecture, that is reinforced concrete where you have iron reinforcing rods, steel reinforcing rods, as soon as water penetrates the concrete it begins corroding those reinforcements," he explained.
"Once the reinforcements start corroding, that begins to chip away at — spall is the term — the concrete."
Experts are assessing all 256 of the museum's windows so a list can be made of the most pressing issues.
"Rather than try to fix everything all at once, which would clearly require millions of dollars to do that kind of restoration work, by sort of breaking these windows down by priority, we can begin addressing those needs in a more deliberate fashion, addressing the greatest priorities first, a few a year," said Amsler.
He added that the window assessment project should be completed later this month.