'SUPPORTING COLUMNS' Brian Morton discusses craftsmanship in Bali, Indonesia Following a consultancy in Singapore, a five day break by the swimming pool in the sun seemed very appealing. The beach holiday idea disappeared when we were registering at the hotel built some 10 years ago when I realised that the wall facing me (below left) and the corridor wall leading to our room was constructed of bricks without any mortar joints. Not only this, but I could not see how the limestone carvings were attached to the walls. Although the larger pieces of stone were built in, smaller pieces appeared to be stuck to the face of the wall, and even to reinforced concrete columns. We were very fortunate in that we had an introduction to a Balinese family and after a day of the usual tourist trail with a taxi taking us to Temples which were said to date to the 14th century, I felt I must find out more about the methods they used in the construction of their Temples and other buildings. Our Balinese friends entered into the spirit of the investigation and we seemed to spend the next four days hurtling from A to B as we became more involved. The whole building process in Bali has been passed down from generation to generation through craftsmen who are born into the caste system and thus it is likely that a bricklayer of today is descended from a 12th century bricklayer simply because that is the way it works. Similarly of course, the bricks which are made on the island are made in the same way today as they were centuries before. We also pursued the source of the CONTEXT SO stone and the technique for building with it and thus after paddling through streams we ended up in a ravine where a very soft pumice-like limestone was being quarried by one man sitting on his haunches cutting our pieces of stone of similar size and texture to a Thermalite block. It really was very soft and quite wet, and it was perfectly possible to cut this using a bolster-like tool and afairly light hammer, the blocks being cut to twice the length of the man's foot by one (man's) foot wide. Although of soft texture, the stone was quite heavy because of the amount of water content. These stones, when quarried, are taken back to the side of the road and left to dry in the sun. As they dry they harden and become quite hard. We understood that the source of the stone determined the quality (hardness), the harder stones being more dense and always used for the Temple building. We were not able to see the bricks being made, but we were taken across the island to meet a brick layer/stone mason who told us that they were stuck together and he indicated by rubbing his hands together. I found this difficult to believe and asked for a demonstration. Some 20 km away was the site of a building which had just been completed and the bricklayer showed to us the method of running the bricks together (next page, top right) to form a slurry so that they adhered. This was simply the same technique as we use for rubbing bricks to form brick arches but we do not use the slurry that is formed as the jointing compound. The trick is to soak the bricks thoroughly beforehand, as I have discovered with the samples that I brought home. Of course what is happening i.sthat a pozolanic mixture is formed which dries in the sun and in effect there is a solid wall of brick joined by the same mix as the brick itself. Sticking the bricks together I could accept and understand, but I was told that the small piece of stone selected for its correct texture is rubbed onto the face of the brick to form the decoration. I was not able to see this done and there are some doubts in my mind, but it certainly explains the apparent lack of fixing and certainly when the wet stone was rubbed on wet bricks a slurry occurred in a similar way to that described. We were very fortunate to be able to look at a Temple being constructed and although the core of some of the walls was formed with concrete with some reinforcement, the way the stones were cut and laid out dry before being positioned must be very similar to the way in which our Cathedrals were built. One of the major difficulties associated with the handing down of the traditional techniques from father to son is that the buildings as built centuries ago are built exactly the same today. This creates an enormous problem for the archaeologists and when reading about the archaeology of the Bali buildings it is made clear that they cannot really tell how_ old the Above: Balustrade to a terrace where the highly decorated stone can be seen. The stone is cut when very soft and simply hardens in the sun. 21
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