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Fourth Annual POTS Symposium
New Jersey Terra Cotta:
Building an Industry on Clay
Saturday, April 21, 2007
9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
New Jersey State Museum
205 West State Street
Trenton, New Jersey
This year's symposium examines the contribution of New Jersey's important terra cotta makers to urban skylines in the region. Forty-eight companies operated in the U.S. during the period of terra cotta's greatest popularity (1880-1930), and New Jersey had the largest concentration of terra-cotta manufacturers. Outstanding clay deposits, proximity to markets, and a wide variety of transportation options all contributed to this industrial prominence.
Architectural terra cotta is extraordinarily adaptable as a building material. It can be molded, sculpted, and glazed to imitate all sorts of other materials or used for its own characteristics. Architects in the early 1900s thought it a superior medium because of its longevity, imperviousness, color, and imitative qualities. It was also lighter and cheaper than stone. Most of the architectural terra cotta made in New Jersey was used as ornamental cladding on skyscrapers, but it was also found useful for grave markers, hitching posts, carriage blocks, chimney pots, and statuary.
Program Schedule
| 9:30 am | Registration and Light Refreshments |
| 10 am | Welcome |
| 10:15-12:30 pm | Lectures with questions following each presentation. |
| Peter Sugarman, Clay Resources of the New Jersey Coastal Plain | |
| Richard Veit, 'A Piece of Granite Made in Two Weeks': An Overview of New Jersey's Architectural Terra Cotta Industry | |
| Mark Nonestied, Uncommon Clay: Salvaging New Jersey's Terra Cotta Past | |
| Susan Tunick, Terra Cotta Treasures: Buildings in and Around New York | |
| 12:30-2:00 pm | Box Lunch |
| 2:00-3:00 pm | Ellen Denker, Evidence of Trenton's Tile & Terra Cotta Makers |
| Tour of Trenton-made tile installations in the New Jersey State
House. Driving Tour of Trenton tile & terra cotta buildings included with registration packets. |