> -----Original Message-----
> From: Met History [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 2:13 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [BP] Construction specifications for a 1908 
> apartment house in New York City...
> 
> 

> "Provide entrance hall with Tennessee Marble floor of 
> approximately 12" x 12", or so such multiples as will work 
> out in the area of the room."  (Note, 2004: this passage 
> indicates that the architect was not so picky about the 
> marble floor.)  

I read this to be as picky as any of the other.

Tennessee Marble is a specifically named marble of known color and
texture; I have a 4" x 5" specification sample on my desk from the
Orpheum Theatre restoration in Memphis, ca 1983. It is labeled "Regular
Tenn." I use it as my cold beverage coaster.

The architect was also very concerned about the symmetry of the tile
placement on the floor of his entrance hall. No cut tiles at the edges
just because the walls didn't quite end up dimensionally where the plans
direct them. The designer is taking into account the vagaries and
potential imprecision of building layout, and saying that "no matter how
the walls ended up, I want the tiles to all be the same dimension
relative to each direction of the joints, 12.5" running east-west,
11.75" running north-south, or whatever it needs to be for the joints to
work out at the walls with no cutting of the tile size."

But he said it in a funny-sounding different accent than folks
hereabouts would. 

_______________________________________________________
Dan Becker,  Exec. Dir.     "The workman ought often to
Raleigh Historic           be thinking, and the thinker
Districts Commission              often to be working."
[log in to unmask]                         -- John Ruskin
919/807-8480 

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