865 The Alameda
San Jose, California
This photo shows the Packard Buidling in 1940. Notice the wonderful sculptural detailing over the windows and the doors. As often happened during the 1960’s and 1970’s many buildings were stripped of their ornamentation to reflect the modernism trend that was sweeping the country.
In 2009 the engineering firm Biggs Cardosa, who bought the building in 2007, hired Michael H. Casey Designs to re-create all of the cast stone ornamentation that was originally over the doors and window.
The projected was done in panels, originally sculpted by Michael H. Casey, to make the installation easy. Once the sculpture was done the final product was molded and cast in GFRC by Michael H. Casey Designs.
The cohesive group that consisted of the owners, the contractor, Garden City Construction and the architect Garcia-Teague made this one of the funnest projects that Michael H. Casey Designs had the pleasure of working on.
As Michael often did, he worked from old photographs of the building to as closely recreate the original as possible.
