The restoration and adaptive re-use of the SS Columbia will be one of the most challenging maritime preservation projects yet undertaken in the United States. The planned restoration must result in a vessel that will have multiple usages including as an interpreted exhibit, an active passenger vessel, and an events venue.

The restoration of the Columbia as a static exhibit, given her significance as an historical, cultural, aesthetic, and engineering artifact, would be challenging in and of itself. The proposed multiple end uses of the vessel will create additional challenges beyond the traditional requirements for research, conservation and reconstruction. In particular, the SS Columbia Project will have to accommodate the USCG’s regulatory requirements; address the needs imposed by the Columbia’s new route and service; and enhance the vessel’s mechanical infrastructure to support her use as an events venue. We are fortunate that a majority of the vessel’s blueprints have survived to serve as a basis for historical accuracy during the restoration.

Philosophical Basis

The Columbia will be restored and interpreted as a living vessel. She will be presented as a palimpsest that has had many interventions (including our own) over the years. The complexity of the object, its history, and the demands that will be placed on it will necessitate flexibility in preparing overall guidelines for the project. The key precepts overall will be that of documentation and reversibility. Documentation will include historical research on all aspects of the vessel’s creation, use, alterations, and history, as well as documenting what the vessel herself reveals to us as we examine her and documenting all of our own interventions. Our documentation of the vessel’s evolution will be part of her interpretation for visitors so they may better understand what they are experiencing. Our thorough documentation of the vessel will permit reversibility. Should future generations decide to take another approach to the vessel, our documentation will permit the reversal of our interventions.

Aesthetics

The Columbia is an aesthetic object that has been subjected to many layers of “mark making” since her original conception and execution under the direction of Frank Kirby and Louis O. Keil. This design team was enormously prolific and influential in the United States. The vessel is one of only two essentially unaltered examples of their work. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the alterations that were made to the vessel after her first 20 years of service may be viewed as unfortunate “updates” and “modernizations” that were not undertaken at the same level of design, materials, and craftsmanship that characterized her original conception. These interventions do not represent the best of their periods and will most likely best be removed to reveal the original design team’s intentions.

Any interventions undertaken in the current restoration effort will emphasize the vessel’s value as an aesthetic object. The patina of time should not be eradicated from the vessel, yet interventions that are contemporary should perhaps be clearly identifiable as contemporary and at the highest standards of contemporary design.

Multiple usages

Some spaces in the vessel will have to serve multiple purposes to accommodate the vessels multiple roles. To illustrate: the foc’sle crew quarters. The starboard side of the quarters is still relatively intact whereas the port side has been heavily altered. The starboard side deserves careful restoration and interpretation; the port side offers more latitude in treatment. Ultimately the re-constituted space will probably serve three purposes:

1. When the vessel is steaming, the crew quarters will probably revert to a variation of their original usage, serving as a crew lounge and quarters.
2. While dockside, the space will be interpreted for visitors
3. During events, venue usage the space would be the logical venue for a coat check!

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