C O N T E X T 1 3 8 : M A R C H 2 0 1 5 9 parmesan cheese. Natural Stone Specialist reported in its October 2014 issue that the Stone Federation was making a case to the European Commission to protect traditional stone names, such as Ancaster, Portland and Purbeck. The aim is to differentiate these from the loose application of the terms to imported or even man-made products. The series examining great British stones continued with the geological history, properties, testing methods and uses of DeLank granite from Cornwall. The November 2014 issue similarly described a specific stone but from the polar opposite end of Britain: Caithness. This durable stone is frequently used for paving in Scottish cities. Mhora Samuel, the director of the Theatres Trust, makes an interesting point in her editorial in the trust’s TM – Theatres Magazine (Issue 42, Winter 2014). She writes of the three accepted cycles to which theatres have to adapt: initial cosmetic changes; subsequent functional changes; and, after a long period, when new theatre styles drive more significant changes to auditoria. She adds that a fourth pressure is to adapt to changes caused by the aging of building materials. Samuel cites the aging of concrete (most recently requiring the replacement of the concrete facade of the Congress Theatre, Eastbourne), and of plaster and hessian materials used in late-19th- and early 20th-century theatres. This is by way of introducing guidance, currently out for consultation from the Association of British Theatre Technicians, on how to deal with suspended fibrous plaster ceilings. Mark White from the ABTT writes about guidance that should help owners and building managers in future with appropriate maintenance and care. I conclude, as I occasionally do, with more publication and research grants likely to lead to books of interest to conservation professionals in the near future, gleaned from the Newsletter of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (Issue 41, January 2015). Among those noted are grants (for publications) to Owen Hopkinson for From the Shadows: the architecture and afterlife of Nicholas Hawksmoor; and Mark Swenarton for Cook’s Camden: the housing programme of the London Borough of Camden under Sydney Cook, 1965–73; and (for research) to Claudia Marx for research on ‘The Restoration of Major Mediaeval Churches in Victorian England andWales’. Bob Kindred MBE Creating the Dorfman RevisitingHampsteadTheatre Guidance on suspendedfibrousplaster ceilings Showcase:Dominion ReopeningDunfermlineAlhambra ISSUE#42WINTER 14 Protecting theatres for everyone From Lectures on Architecture and Painting, delivered in Edinburgh by John Ruskin (1853) About such architecture as is built nowadays, no mortal ever did or could care. You do not feel interested in hearing the same thing over and over again; why do you suppose you can feel interested in seeing the same thing over and over again, were that thing even the best and most beautiful in the world? Now, you all know the kind of window which you usually build in Edinburgh: here is an example of the head of one, a massy lintel of a single stone, laid across from side to side, with bold square-cut jambs – in fact, the simplest form it is possible to build. It is by no means a bad form; on the contrary, it is very manly and vigorous, and has a certain dignity in its utter refusal of ornament. But I cannot say it is entertaining. How many windows precisely of this form do you suppose there are in the New Town of Edinburgh? I have not counted them all through the town, but I counted them this morning along this very Queen Street, in which your Hall is; and on the one side of that street, there are of these windows, absolutely similar to this example, and altogether devoid of any relief by decoration, six hundred and seventy-eight. And your decorations are just as monotonous as your simplicities. How many Corinthian and Doric columns do you think there are in your banks, and post-offices, institutions, and I know not what else, one exactly like another? And yet you expect to be interested! Nay, but, you will answer me again, we see sunrises and sunsets, and violets and roses, over and over again, and we do not tire of them. What! Did you ever see one sunrise like another? Does not God vary His clouds for you every morning and every night?
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