Wall & Ceiling - April/May 2005
Iconoplast Designs restoration works at One King West, Toronto

Furieri’s contract has not been easy. “This job represents all the challenges of a plaster restoration project. We have a lot of complicated interventions that require the greatest precision. We have to makes our work inconspicuous and that is tricky on such a large scale”

Imperial Theatre - Saint-John, New Brunswick
Iconoplast Designs restoration works at imperial Theatre, Saint-John, New Brunswick

The decorative plaster work and specialty painting are reproduced from the original ornamentation. Master plasterer Jean-François Furieri made plaster molds from the originals.

“The original is one of the best examples of plaster work we’ve seen,” he says. “The old style pieces are quite unique. It’s of the calibre of an opera house in Italy. This is the quality we’re talking about.”

The Canadian Architect oct. 1989 - Pantages Theatre Toronto
Iconoplast Designs restoration works at Pantages Theatre, Toronto

“Mezzanine lobby. The medaillons and detailing in the ceiling were recovered from under thick layers of paint. Over 800 plaster casts and 1500 paint samples were taken in the restoration program overall.”

Reclamation on 42nd Street, New York
Iconoplast Designs restoration works at Times Square theatres.
The Ford Center for Performing Arts, New York City N.Y.

Before any demolition could begin, master plaster restorer Jean-François Furieri and a 25 person crew from his Toronto-based firm, iconoplast Designs, spent three months painstakingly removing monumental plaster ornament from the Apollo.

This Old House
Ornemental Plaster - Making the mold - Casting the Medaillion - Iconoplast Designs

“You could build a whole theater with the tools in two suitcases,” Furieri says

The New Brunswick Reader - Jan. 1994
Iconoplast Designs restoration works at imperial Theatre, Saint-John, New Brunswick

”Jean-François Furieri brings European craftmanship to the renovations of Saint John's venerable theatre”

...Gary Hughes, the chief curator at the New Brunswick Museum is impressed with the reproduction. “I think it’s very good, His reproductions are very accurate. We can see photographs of the original work and viewing the work that the expert has done, up close,it’s very, very true, very good.”

Wall & Curtain
Iconoplast Designs restoration works at Times Square theatres.
The Ford Center for Performing Arts, New York City N.Y.

Virtually nothing was salvageable from the interior of the Lyric, abandoned in 1922, but there were what Kofman calls “historic elements” still intact within the Apollo: boxes, the ceiling dome, columns, arches and decorative motifs that could be - if not restored - re-created.
What was dismantled was transported to Bayonne, N.J. ,where work took place under the direction of master plasterer Jean-François Furieri

The Toronto Star
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Iconoplast Designs Residential products

“From Egyptian to Art Nouveau to Art Deco - name your favorite period and you can get the architectural pieces”

The New York Time
Arts & Leisure

Iconoplast Designs restoration works at Times Square theatres - the Ford Center for Performing Arts, New York City

With a Lavish Bow to the past, A Broadway Plalace is built.