Context 165 - August 2020

C O N T E X T 1 6 5 : A U G U S T 2 0 2 0 5 While often being described as “maintenance-free”, it would be more accurate to describe much modern construction as “unmaintainable” in the normal meaning of the term… ‘Could it become possible to create sophisticated buildings to suit contemporary needs from more local, more natural and less processed materials? The purpose of mortar is not to stick masonry together but to keep it apart, avoiding point contact and distributing compressive loads evenly… ‘Walls, columns, beams and slabs could all be made from small pieces of factory-sawn stone, cut and pre-drilled to a design of standard components. The basic principle for spanning elements would be that of the post-tensioned flat-arch or lintel, though (probably) in the interest of component standardisation without the need for voussoiring.’ James Simpson, chairman of the Building Limes Forum, writing in Stone Specialist ‘THE OWNERS of some of the UK’s oldest and quirkiest homes are doing what they do best – facing down adversity and planning how they can adapt to a very different and uncertain future. There’s a stoic determination to weather this storm in the same way that these houses’ former owners scraped through the dark days of earlier centuries – by changing and evolving. ‘[Some] ponder whether the trend for working from home will lead to more midweek visitors, and in general there is widespread rethinking of opening hours in a diversity of ways – from extending their dates to make up for lost time, through replacing free-flow visiting with guided tours, to reducing their opening hours where they depend on volunteers who may themselves be older and vulnerable.’ From a statement from Historic Houses, a not-for-profit cooperative association representing independently owned historic houses, castles and gardens. ‘I HOPE this letter finds you well painted in your Post Office red. I wonder what we’d make of you in early pillar box green, or indeed Olympic gold – although I expect the people of Hull are by now used to seeing your descendants liveried in uncrowned cream. I shall have to send this care of the Postal Museum, as you must be one of the few buildings to be designed without a letter box. A “miniature building” as the late Gavin Stamp (with a name more suited to post-box preservation) argued in order to save you from the shortcomings of conservation area reform, when you were elevated from overlooked street furniture to become one of our smallest Grade II listed buildings… ‘When I visit you in more ordinary times, I step inside and stand beneath your Soanian arches. I picture cigarette smoke curling high in your spacious interior to its pierced royal escape. I see bowler- hatted businessmen queuing to communicate news or to converse with countless caring wives, not necessarily their own, such was the new-found privacy afforded to all behind your teak door. ‘As children, before the service you provided could be carried in bags and pockets, we were taught how to use you in case of emergency. These days telephone boxes are more likely used to contain libraries, defibrillators or tiny offices rented by the hour.’ Andrew Jackson of the Twentieth Century Society writing to Giles Gilbert Scott’s K2 Telephone Box in a blog on the Postal Museum’s website ‘THIS PROJECT looks at the space between the Guildhall and the Civic Centre and how we can encourage people to think again about what they may have perhaps taken for granted. Plymouth’s post- war buildings tell an extraordinary story of a city that rebuilt itself. Its history is in the stonework of all these buildings, and they should be celebrated and talked about.We want people to look up, and look at these incredible buildings with a fresh pair of eyes. ‘The city centre was crucial to the city’s recovery then and it is now. It plays a key part in our Resurgam programme to meet the economic challenge that we now face.’ Plymouth City Council leader Tudor Evans welcoming a grant from Historic England towards the rejuvenation of the listed Civic Square Lincoln Cathedral: the masons exploited the compressive strength of stone to an extraordinary degree (Photo: James Newton)