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

Furieri’s contract has not been easy. “This project 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, 1993
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
Home
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 Times
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.

Dominique Furieri originated the family business in Italy in the early 1900’s and then moved to Algiers. Dominique’s son expanded the business when it moved to France.

With access to technology Jean-François Furieri is bringing a modern approach to traditional art.

Master craftsman.

The work is as much an art as a trade. Mr. Furieri says master plasterers have to be dedicated. “It takes a long apprenticeship to be able to create a Corinthian capital from scratch.”

Toronto plaster expert wins Broadway gig - 1997

Furieri makes and restores fine works of plaster- from the smallest rosette to the largest haut relief or column. Inside a warehouse in Bayonne N.J. he has been restoring New York’s historic Apollo theatre. In what the artisan calls his most challenging and unique project.

Iconoplast le demeure de l'iconoclasme - 2006

Iconoplast Designs Inc. was involved in the $17 million restoration of Cineplex-Odeon’s Pantages theatre . Furieri’s work on the project included restoring the great dome over the theatre, the entrance foyer, the ceiling under the balcony and two huge grilles on each side of the stage.

Furieri says he received his “master” designation (a term he says comes from a long tradition of European apprenticeship) after his work on the Egyptian Theatre in Montreal and the Pantages Theatre in Toronto.

Third generation master plasterer Jean-François Furieri has spent a lot of time doing commercial work, for retail outlets like Silk and Satin stores across Canada to the Manhattan Opera House and Royal Ontario Museum, in addition to historical restorations and high-end residential work, where ‘everything is original.’

Plaster Dust

Endless details in the dome, a new marquee, our resident angel, a restored ceiling cameo and a visit from the PBS series “This Old House” (their first ever to a theatre restoration site.) All part of the Lucas success story.

Beginning in the spring of last year, the old theatres were essentially gutted. But most of the design details and decorative motifs of the Apollo were salvaged and are being incorporated into the $30 million Ford Center.

Master plasterer Jean-François Furieri works on “The Ancanthus Leaf” on the balcony of the Imperial Theatre in Saint John.

Jean-François is devoted to the fine art of decorative plastering. An art historian and master craftsman with an intimate knowledge of Roman, Greek and North American art.

“The applications of plaster mouldings are endless.” Says Furieri, the master craftsman behind Iconoplast Designs Inc. “They are used for ceilings, crown mouldings, friezes, columns, pilasters, niches, sconces.

At the workshop at Iconoplast, skilled craftsmen use the same methods as used in plaster casting 100 years ago. Molds are made from silicon from original pieces and filled with plaster that dries in the shape of the mold.

Jean-François Furieri, head of Iconoplast Designs Inc., the firm that did the plastering estimates that the building would have taken three years to restore if work had proceeded at a normal pace. Said Furieri: “I didn’t have a day off in seven months.”

They faced the daunting task of restoring the magnificent plaster work throughout the building, and turned to Iconoplast Designs Inc. of Toronto.

Hung on the rafters are bits of history, molds and patterns that are part of the 40 tons of archives he brought from his father’s studio in France.

Globe and Mail Final Saturday July 2, 1994

Elaborate scallops, up to 15 centimeters thick and formed of Mexican sisal fibre imbued with plaster, run the whole height of the balcony front and constitute it’s principal decoration. At their base they are linked by curling ocean waves; Floral swags complete the plasterwork (gold on dark green), which restorer Jean-François Furieri has said is deeper and more sculptural than the plaster he restored at Toronto’s Pantages Theatre.