CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 9 post truss?’, the paper stems from a keynote lecture given at the society’s ninth annual conference in April 2022, and takes the study further by analysing recent literature on Italian and French roof trusses. As is well-known, Inigo Jones imported the king post roof in the 17th century from Italy to England. King posts in tension were known during the Tudor period and the author discusses French roof structures as models. The range of subjects in the journal, always widely drawn, also includes a discussion of early glue-laminated timber production in Switzerland, commencing at the start of the 20th century; the unique symbiotic relationship between architects and builders in the Spanish Caribbean, particularly between 1905 and 1925; and vacuum concrete in the construction of houses and industrial buildings in Columbia. These are particularly the legacy of architect Alvaro Ortega (1950–1955). The authors use intriguing historic photographs and written documentation to provide a detailed analysis of this innovative yet risky venture, which ultimately resulted in the bankruptcy of Ortega’s company. Finally, a paper discusses the evolution of the plumbing trade in 19th century Brussels, shedding light on the city’s often-overlooked, smallscale, artisan businesses and selfemployed craftsmen. The Construction Historian In the sister publication The Construction Historian (Issue 11, Winter 2022) of greatest interest is a well-illustrated article by Edwin AR Trout, offering a typology for the architectural forms of filling stations as they emerged as a distinct building type, particularly in relation to the evolving nature of concrete canopies. A number of excellent examples are illustrated, including the utterly distinctive and memorable hyperbolic paraboloid shells developed in the 1960s, such as that at Markham Moor on the A1 at Retford, Nottinghamshire, listed Grade II in 2010. From the introduction by Morris Hicky Morgan to his 1914 translation of Vitruvius’ The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius was not a great literary personage, ambitious as he was to appear in that character. He has all the marks of one unused to composition, to whom writing is a painful task. In his hand the measuring-rod was a far mightier implement than the pen. His turgid and pompous rhetoric displays itself in the introductions to the different books, where his exaggerated effort to introduce some semblance of style into his commonplace lectures on the noble principles which should govern the conduct of the architect, or into the prosaic lists of architects and writers on architecture, is everywhere apparent. Even in the more technical portions of his work, a like conscious effort may be detected and, at the same time, a lack of confidence in his ability to express himself in unmistakable language. He avoids periodic sentences, uses only the simpler subjunctive constructions, repeats the antecedent in relative clauses and, not infrequently, adopts a formal language closely akin to that of specifications and contracts, the style with which he was, naturally, most familiar. He ends each book with a brief summary, almost a formula, somewhat like a sigh of relief, in which the reader unconsciously shares. At times his meaning is ambiguous, not because of grammatical faults, which are comparatively few and unimportant, but because, when he does attempt a periodic sentence, he becomes involved, and finds it difficult to extricate himself. The article also illustrates umbrella shells, wavy-shells, barrel-vaulted canopies and single-cantilever structures, which contribute an under-regarded degree of local distinctiveness where they survive. Perhaps the most remarkable of these was Zidpark, Southwark Bridge, London, a single-cantilever example with a leaf-shaped structure and a dish-shaped canopy, designed by C Edmund Wilford and Sons. Several of the photographed examples are no longer extant but this is a quite remarkable record of diversity preceding the present era of corporate anodyne ubiquity. The issue contains an illustrated article by about five English brickwork museums – in Hampshire, Shropshire, West Sussex (two) and Worcestershire – aiming to encourage those interested in traditional craft methods to visit. On the subject of non-traditional materials, RJ Barwick discusses no-fines concrete, an open, textured lightweight porous cellular material obtained by eliminating fines (sand) from a normal concrete mix. He explains its role in the rise and fall of system-built housing by George Wimpey and Co in the 1960s, and the growth of nontraditional housing systems. Might good, unaltered examples perhaps be listable? Bob Kindred MBE
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