St. Louis Art Museum

Photo Gallery

St. Louis Art Museum – St Louis, MO

STL Art Museum floor

Design and Architecture by HOK International of St. Louis, Missouri and David Chipperfield & Assoc. of London, England.

Installation by Flooring Systems Inc. of St Louis, MO

Products shown:

6″ x all 9′ Quarter Sawn White Oak Flooring finished with VOC Free White Oil supplied by Woca Oils of Denmark.
Herringbone Quarter Sawn White Oak planks finished with a VOC Free Natural Oil to match original 1903 floor.

: St Louis Art Museum

: 6″ Quarter Sawn Solid White Oak Plank

Facts about this floor:

Quarter sawing is a process where the log is sectioned into 4 “quartered” flitches and then sawn perpendicular to the natural radial direction of the growth rings of the log. This form of cutting creates a consistent grain pattern on the face of the planks and supports stability and flatness due to the vertical direction of the grain that is created.
It required the processing and handling of 1.2 million board feet of lumber to sort the 30,000 sq. ft. required to meet the specifications for this unique floor.
The herringbone flooring was produced to match the original flooring installed in 1903 in the main building of the Palace of Fine Arts for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition of the 1904 World’s Fair.