CENTENARY UMC
St. Louis, MO
As part of the redesign and renovation of the front of the historic Centenary
United Methodist Church in downtown St. Louis, a labyrinth was included
in the plan. It was dedicated to the honor of the retiring minister, Rev.
Mi
chael
Tooley, who had served the church for a considerable time.
The labyrinth plaza is located right on what was formerly 16th Street
(between Olive and West Pine), until the church took over that block-long
section years ago. In digging the base, they found hundreds of granite
paving blocks from the old street, some of 
which
were used to encircle the labyrinth. Around 30 feet in diameter, the labyrinth
is of the Santa Rosa design. (For information, see www.srlabyrinthfoundation.com.)
A modern sculpture, designed by the architect, was placed near the entrance
to the labyrinth.
The pattern was painted onto the concrete with stain. The project was in the late fall, which caused the church to delay sealing the concrete until the following summer. That proved to be a mistake, as the concrete got quite dirty and the stained pattern sustained a certain amount of degradation. Since developing our all-concrete technology, we no longer suggest staining concrete. The surface was cleaned and the labyrinth re-stained, so that it looked good again. And then it was sealed.
There's more to the story. The stain did not hold up well on this labyrinth. We were sad to see it in a degraded condition, so we adopted the labyrinth and agreed to upgrade it and maintain it, at cost.
We sand-blasted the pattern to remove the stain and "shot" it with polymer concrete. We then sealed it with two coats of solvent-based sealer. It now looks like the photo below.
