Walking around Park Slope/Fort Greene today with Paul Shaw, who sees the
city principally in terms of lettering. Looking at Howell's 1927
Byzantine-style auditorium on the Pratt campus, he noted how the words
"Science" and "Art" were far too lightly inscribed, made them hard to see,
since they are quite high up. But on Kimball's Emmanuel Baptist Church
(1896), he observed that the datestone was a good example of the
"contextual" school of lettering: In this case the "1" had a little
upside down cedilla headed northeast. The designer - presumably the
architect - gave the "6" a similar detail, simply to match the interesting
form of the "1", rather than trying to make it confirm to the classic form
of the "6". Sounds nice. Will we be reading about this soon in the Paper of
Record?
At any rate, went past a ca. 1905 apartment house, with wooden sidelights
and Federal-style wooden transom. Noticed a peculiar pattern of
alligatoring. The side construction is mostly verticial strips, wood, with
grain running up and down - but there was alligatoring aligned horizontally,
at fairly regular 1-1.5" spaces.
What causes alligatoring? Is it expansion and contraction of the wood? If
so, I thought wood would do that across the grain, instead of with the
grain? Why are the alligatoring lines across the grain, instead of with
it? The greatest movement of the wood is parallel to the grain, NOT! The
greatest rate of shrinkage from the green state and movement from moisture
cycling is tangential to the growth rings. The second greatest is radial
(perpendicular to the pith) and the LEAST (often considered negligible) is
parallel to the pith line or linear. ..causing stress in the paint and crack
formation perpendicular to the motion, as the paint expands and contracts.
Was it alligatoring in the paint or in the wood fibers? I think. We can
argue about that later.
christopher Ralph Rudy
_____
See what's free at AOL.com <http://www.aol.com/?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503> .
-- To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html
_____
size=2 width="100%" align=center>
AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from
AOL at <http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000437> AOL.com.
-- To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
|
