CINCINNATI — A nearly 100-year-old Rookwood fountain has been carefully preserved and relocated within the University of Cincinnati's newly renovated chemistry building.
The ornate fountain, originally gifted to the old chemistry building by graduates, stood embedded in a thick terra cotta block within a wall for decades. When renovation plans began for the building, construction teams knew they had to find a way to save this piece of campus history.
"It was more of, 'Oh my God, we gotta do something with this really was the biggest thing.' I mean, I was like, 'oh, you know, we got, we gotta save it and it's not gonna be easy,'" Jordan Tobler said.
Tobler, assistant superintendent with Skanska USA and part of the construction team, understood that preserving the fountain would require specialized expertise.
WATCH: Learn more about the preservation of the 100-year-old fountain
Enter Tony Kalti, a tile craftsman with more than 30 years of experience who took on what he describes as one of the most significant projects of his career.
"My first question usually is, does anybody here know how hard this is going to be? And then my next question is, when do we begin?" Kalti said.
The preservation process required Kalti to painstakingly peel away the wall to preserve each individual tile without damage.
"A job like this, you're going to give up part of your soul because it's just so intense and valuable," Kalti said. "I mean, this was tricky. This was really tricky to take this thing apart."
For months, Kalti carefully cleared the fountain from the wall and then faced the challenge of rebuilding it in its new location.
"Keeping that basin intact and not breaking it, and then that was really the first thing that I had to put on the wall in order to build everything around it," Kalti said.
The restored fountain now stands 9 feet high and 5 feet wide in a modern hallway where students pass by this piece of craftsmanship created when their grandparents or great-grandparents walked UC's campus.
The fountain's design has become an inspiration for the rest of the state-of-the-art building. The chevron patterns and tile work from the historic fountain have been incorporated into the building's window designs.
Ted Baldwin, director of science and engineering libraries, created educational materials explaining the fountain's significance and the meaning of its symbols to help newcomers understand this piece of campus history.
When asked if he could imagine the fountain being lost, Baldwin said, "There's no way."
"I would have been in here keeping myself at it because this could not be lost," Baldwin said.
The university expects the fountain to stand the test of time in its new space, serving as a bridge between UC's historic past and its modern future.
"I'm just so grateful that it ended up like this and everybody's happy," Kalti said.
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