Fancy floor stayed in art museum's plans

A few years ago, there was talk of replacing the expensive travertine marble flooring designated for the atrium of the Taubman Museum of Art with sealed concrete.

"It's a more contemporary, edgier look," architect Randall Stout said of the concrete in late 2005. It was also a lot cheaper, at a time when building costs were skyrocketing.

As anyone who has peeked through the museum's glass entryway in recent weeks can attest, it never happened.

"The travertine was so much more beautiful, and fit the design so well," museum Executive Director Georganne Bingham explained.

Travertine marble, also sometimes called travertine limestone, is a sedimentary rock whose rough, weathered surface has been admired for millennia. Famous buildings have been built of or covered with travertine, including the Coliseum in Rome and the Basilique du Sacre Coeur, or Church of the Sacred Heart, in Paris, overlooking Montmartre.

The art museum's travertine is imported from Turkey. It was shipped from the city of Izmir to Norfolk, where it was loaded onto trucks for the trip to Roanoke, museum external affairs director Kimberly Templeton said.

The installation of the travertine should be complete by early July, museum officials said.