Week 5: Pasta, Passion, and Discovering Parallels in the Technical Work of Vitruvius

Last week I mentioned the incredible meals here at the American Academy in Rome (AAR), and the amusing NY Times article about the renaissance of the kitchens here. The Times article completely hit the nail on the head in stating that the meals here at the Academy have “become an almost irrational center of its intellectual life”. Not only in the passion that we all have for the food here and the traditional food of Rome and Lazio (the region of which Rome is a part), but the way the meals here bring the Academy’s Fellows, Residents and Visiting Artists and Scholars together twice each day, at the table, to share great food and exchange ideas. That open, informal exchange of ideas among artists and scholars in different disciplines is at the heart of the mission of the American Academy in Rome, and has been since its founding.

This Saturday the AAR hosted a book event for the release of The Encyclopedia of Pasta, by the notable Italian food author and researcher Oretta Zanini De Vita. The event included talks by the author, translator, publisher, and the Sous Chef of the AAR kitchen, Chris Boswell.

Like AAR Executive Chef Mona Talbot, Sous Chef Chris Boswell was hand-selected by Alice Waters from her staff at Chez Panisse in Berkeley CA several years ago to help lead the renaissance of the AAR kitchens and the Rome Sustainable Food Project. Chris spoke so passionately and eloquently about the pasta and food of Italy, and specifically about his love of this book, that I had to buy it immediately. Several weeks ago, when each of the 29 Fellows of the Academy for this academic year gave a 5 minute introductory presentation on their project, I was overwhelmed by the passion each has for his/her work and field – whether a musical composer, an artist, an archaeologist, a poet, an architect, a scholar of the classics or Renaissance studies, the common link (in addition to a remarkable level of accomplishment in their field), was their passion for what they do. Now having recently heard Sous Chef Chris Boswell and AAR President and CEO Adele Chatfield-Taylor each speak about what they do, it’s very clear to me that this deep passion is a common thread not among the Fellows, but equally among the staff of the AAR.

In any field, whether architecture or pasta, there’s really no substitute for putting theory to the test in practice, and the Encyclopedia of Pasta book event was no exception. For the lunch that followed, Chris, Mona, and the rest of the kitchen staff prepared an incredible lunch spread of about a half dozen or more different pasta dishes from Oretta’s book. The dessert was a very unusual and equally bravissimo dish of a tiny pasta swimming in a rich chocolate sauce. Prior to Saturday, I’d thought that dishes like pasta with chocolate sauce only existed in the world of Willy Wonka…

Va bene, basta con la pasta. (Okay, enough with the pasta). At least for this week, anyway.

Mark Webster posed a great question to me last week via the comment link on the blog, asking about other factors (in addition to the original detailing and construction) that affect a building’s longevity. Mark specifically asked about adaptability and location as factors that could affect longevity, and he’s quite correct – these and many other factors affect a building’s longevity.

These factors can include (to name but a few):

• Demolition of buildings to make way for new construction. This wouldn’t happen to an ancient Roman building today, but it did for over a thousand years. Thus, buildings in dense urban areas where land values are high have been more prone to this type of demolition than buildings in rural areas.

• The use of ancient buildings or structures as “quarries” for materials for new construction (this happened to many ancient Roman buildings in the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire). The famous Roman aqueduct Pont du Gard, in the rural countryside outside Nimes France,

is a good example of both points above. In addition to its highly durable construction, the massive size of its sandstone blocks, and its remote rural location have served to discourage pilfering its stones for other uses.  Hauling its massive stone blocks long distance simply wasn’t an attractive option.  Many other Roman aqueducts built with smaller stones in more developed areas weren’t so fortunate.  

• Extreme events, such as severe earthquakes, floods, or hurricanes. For example, far more Gothic churches in Spain have succumbed to severe earthquakes than those in northern France, because of the greater seismic activity in Spain.

• Long-term deterioration, (mitigated by milder climates) – ancient Roman buildings tend to survive much more intact in the milder climates of the southern Mediterranean (e.g., Italy, the Mediterranean, southern France) than in or north of the Alps (e.g., Germany), where the climate and in particular freeze/thaw cycling is much more severe, and takes a serious toll on the masonry construction that was typical of Ancient Rome. On the other hand, for the long-term preservation of wood structures, very cold climates are your best friend. Wood decay (“rot”) is a fungal process, and these fungal bodies can’t survive or be active in very cold temperatures. Hence, many of the most intact, earliest timber structures are in Scandinavia.

• Long-term weather related deterioration can also be mitigated by maintenance and repair, Hence, deterioration is in turn mitigated by continued use, which encourages maintenance (someone is there to notice a roof leak and repair it), whereas deterioration can rapidly progress and accelerate unabated in abandoned buildings. The Pantheon in Rome is a good example. Although its much-studied construction was remarkably thoughtful and sophisticated, another key factor in its incredible durability was its gift to the Pope and conversion to a church relatively relatively early for an Ancient Roman structure (in the 7th century AD). This provided for continuous use and maintenance. And when the original bronze roof tile were stripped from the outside of the dome because of their value, at least the church had the sense to put new roofing on the dome (lead), to continue to protect the unreinforced concrete dome from the weather.

So for all these reasons, from the very outset I knew my project here could not simply examine what survived mostly intact, what did not survive, and then conclude that A is more durable than B.  I knew I must examine closely the construction details and methods, diagnose how and why they fail, or what makes an overall system (e.g., a wall, a roof) durable when one or more of its components (e.g., brick, mortar, tile,) deteriorates or fails. Thus, out of necessity, my project has always been about very specific diagnostics and forensics of various construction details and methods, not surveys of what’s extant and what’s not. 

That’s what Vitruvius did – he always attempted to diagnose why something failed, and what to learn from that, and how to avoid that failure in the future. What he did is so similar to what I do in my practice today, that in the course of my work over the past 14 years, at times I’ve realized a very direct parallel to something I’ve done or figured out, an what Vitruvius found and described in De Architectura (“The Ten Books on Architecture”).

For example, in investigating severe stone masonry deterioration in the upper tower of H.H. Richardson’s Hampden County Courthouse (1871) in Springfield, Massachusetts, I concluded that the particular manner in which the original contractor, Norcross Brothers, set the masonry had likely prevented a collapse of the severely deteriorated upper tower.

Despite the near total loss of the mortar (as a result of freeze/thaw deterioration) beneath a shallow surface repointing, Norcross Brothers original construction method of shimming every stone at multiple points created point-to-point contact and alternate load pathsthrough the masonry walls, without significant displacement of the stones. They also has the foresight to use slate shims (not wood or metal), so the shims did not rust or rot.  Essentially, they had built a wall that still stood with near total loss of the mortar. Realizing the inherent benefit of this original construction detail, I took this as a “lesson learned” for long-term durability, and designed each stone to be shimmed in the same manner during rehabilitation.

In other H.H. Richardson and/or Norcross Bros. buildings that I have examined, it is typical for Norcross to diligently shim [in the case of ashlar (rectangular stones)], or “chink” [to shim in the case of rubble (irregularly shaped stones)] their stone masonry construction. The need is more obvious in the case of chinked rubble (and it can be seen in vernacular constructions in many locations, including here in Italy), as it is needed for stability during construction, until the mortar cures. However the need or benefit is far less obvious with ashlar masonry, which doesn’t need it for the initial stability during construction, but which

benefits from it in long-term durability as the mortar weathers and deteriorates, as described above.  Norcross Brothers certainly knew exactly what they were doing, and close examination of the details of their work shows that they built with long-term durability in mind, and succeeded.

My work also intersected that of Vitruvius in my investigation a decade ago of severe, persistent, moisture-related blistering of interior plaster finishes in the Old State House (1748) in Boston that occurred only in the northeast corner of the building.   The exterior masonry and flashings at the northeast corner were in the same condition as everywhere else, which puzzled the Park Service.  Why then did the plaster damage only occur in the northeast corner?   I found that the blistering was due to a combination of factors that coincide at the northeast corner. One of these factors was that the building was largely shielded by taller surrounding buildings, except near the northeast corner, where the exposure is wide-open to wind-driven rain from the northeast from the “Nor’easter” storms common in Boston. Another major factor in the persistent damage was that the interior finishes in the west half of the building (which had no damage) were constructed on wood furring, creating an air space (and capillary break) between the exterior brick masonry walls and the interior plaster, whereas the walls in the east half of the building (which suffered persistent damage) were constructed with the plaster adhered directly to the exterior brick masonry, without an intervening air space. Thus the interior plaster at the northeast corner, lacking a capillary break, was able to readily to “wick” waterfrom the damp masonry wall.  In my report, I quoted

Vitruvius who had learned the same durability lesson, and made recommendations in Book VII, Chapter IV (“On Stucco Work in Damp Places…”) for preventing damage to interior plaster by constructing a vented air space between interior plaster and frequently damp exterior walls, and made a similar recommendation. Fortunately, the direct-adhered plaster in the northeast corner was so thick that it allowed space for an air space behind, while maintaining the inner surface of the plaster at its present location and relationship to the wood trim and wainscot. That was about a decade ago. About a year or so ago, the work was finally undertaken by the National Park Service in conjunction with a major rehabilitation designed by Tellalian Associates Architects and Planners and constructed by Lee Kennedy Company. I was pleased to hear from my colleagues David Storeygard at Tellalain and Pam Bailey at Lee Kennedy that our early investigation report was well read, and that our recommendation of spacing the plaster off the brick to create an air space at the northeast corner had been accepted and implemented successfully.  Although I wasn’t involved in this recent rehabilitation effort, they were kind enough to arrange for me to tour the site while the work was in progress.  One thing I really appreciate about the historic preservation community in Boston is that the spirit of cooperation and sharing our findings with our professional colleagues far outweighs any sort of perception of each other as competition.  David and Pam exemplify that gracious generosity and professionalism.

 Just before I left for Rome, I again encountered currently relevant technical wisdom in Vitruvius on a current project for the rehabilitation of historic Rhode Island Hall at Brown University in Providence (a circa 1840 Greek Revivial building, with stone rubble masonry walls parged with stucco on the exterior.)  I’ve really enjoyed working as a consultant to Anmahian Winton Architects (primarily Aaron Bruckerhoff and Nick Winton at AWA) and also working with John Cooke, the Brown Univ. Project Manager, on the repair and localized replacement of cracked and failed stucco.  (I’ve d the good fortune to have worked on a lot of stucco buildings in California and the southern U.S., where stucco is much more common than in New England).

In reviewing submittals for the sand for the stucco, I had our SGH laboratory run a sieve analysis on the sand submittal, and made sure that it met the ASTM requirements of the spec., which it did. For my own edification I cracked-open Vitruvius to see what he had to say about sand. Vitruvius states that:

• The sand should have no dirt in it (still true today)

• Pit sand should be used, rather than sea sand, as the salt in sea sand will spoil the surface. (still true today)

• The best pit sands are those which crackles when rubbed in the hand, and should be sharp. He advises throwing some of the sand on a white garment, and then shaking it out – if the garment is not soiled and no dirt adheres to it, the sand is suitable for use.

The last point is fascinating, because what he has done is come up with a very quick and simple field test for the suitability of the sand, to measure things that we still know to be beneficial today. By throwing the sand against the white garment, and seeing that it brushes off without a stain, he has a quick test to ensure that the sand contains no appreciable clay, silt, or organic content or fines, which would be undesirable in the stucco or mortar, and which would also stain the garment. A stucco that is uniformly graded (meaning all the particles are about the same size), and that has sharp angular particles (both desirable qualities today) will make the crackling sound – well-graded sands or sands with rounded particles or fines will not.

Thus, Vitruvius 2000 years ago, SGH and ASTM today all concur on what makes a good sand for stucco, but whereas we do a sieve analysis test in our laboratory to check the ASTM spec. for these sand characteristics, Vitruvius utilized a simple 10 second test that he can do anywhere in the field, at any remote job site, to determine whether a sand has these desirable qualities for construction.  Bravo, Vitruvius.