Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/285

 EXTERIOR FINISHING OF COTTAGES. 26l which he dips into the roughcast, he brushes and colours the mortar and roughcast that lie has laid on, so as to make them, when finished and dry, appear of the same colour throughout. 530. Another description of rouffhcast, which may he called English, as the other may be called Scotch, consists in "dashing the surface of the plaster, after being newly laid on, with clean grael, pebbles, broken stones of any kind, broken earthenware, scoria, spars, burnt clay, or other materials of the like description, sifted or screened, so as to be of a uniform size. The effect of surfaces of this kind is good, and the process admits of pro- ducing very great variety in tlie external appearance of cottages. The sea-side pebbles are frequently used in this way on the sea-coast of Norfolk : by being forcibly thrown against the moist plaster, they penetrate into it, and render it very firm and durable. Sometimes, instead of the stones, or other matters, being broken to a small and uniform- sized gravel, they are pounded into a coarse sand, and this is dashed against the moist mortar. The effect is pleasing, but the strength and durability are not so great as in the other mode. In using small stones or gravel, it is desirable, for the sake of effect, previously to render the moist plaster as nearly as possible of the same colour as that of the materials to be thrown against it. It is also desirable that all corners, sills, lintels, and, in short, all vertical and horizontal bond, should be tinted of the same colour as the roughcasting. 531. Common Lime and Hair Plastering ornamented is to be seen on the outside of cot- tages in several parts of England. When the plaster is in a moist state, impressions are made on it in various ways, and by various articles. Lines are drawn with the trowel, straight, wavy, angular, intersecting, or irregular. Stripes, chequers, squares, circles, or trelliswork, are also imitated. Wickerwork is a very general subject of imitation ; and this is produced by pressing a panel, generally a foot square, of neatly wrought wicker- work, against the plaster, while moist. It is evident that this description of ornament might be greatly extended and varied ; and that, instead of the panel of wickerwork, wooden plates of patterns, such as those used by room paper-printers, might cover the cottage walls with hieroglyphics, with sculptures of various kinds, with imitations of natural objects, or with memorable or instructive sayings, or chronological facts. 532. Cementing, Roughcasting, and Plastering, as means of ornamenting the outsides of buildings, are dangerous processes in the hands of a builder who is without a culti- vated architectural taste. Let our readers never forget that the outside of a house, or a wall of any kind, covered in every part with roughcast, or with plaster ornamented in any way, except being Ifned and coloured in imitation of stone, is a mere blank or negation in Architecture. Such a wall has no beauty, because it has no expression. It may not even be a wall, but a panoply of plastered lath, imposed upon us as a substitute. No wall is worthy of the name that does not bear on its face the nature and kind of its materials, and the manner of its construction ; or, in other words, that does not display in its physiognomy the character of its anatomy. A house, the walls of which are covered with roughcast, or with plaster whitewashed or otherwise coloured, whatever may be the beauty or magnitude of its doors and windows, is no piece of Architecture ; it is not even an imitation of Architecture ; because the elements of all architectural productions are the stones or bricks of which edifices are composed. A wall or a house, therefore, that does not show, either in reality or in imitation, the materials of which its walls are composed, can have no pretensions to architectural expression. This expression can no more be produced with its full effect, without the indication of the constituent materials of the edifice, than a sentence can be printed without employing the letters of the alphabet. There is not a more important principle than this for the young Architect to bear constantly in mind, in the whole range of the science of Architecture. The rule to be derived from it, in the practice of the art, is, whenever cement is to be employed on the outside of a building, and not to be lined and coloured in imitation of stone, there must be the requisite vertical and horizontal bond, for the strength, stability, and durability of the structure, of brick or of stone ; or, in minor buildings, of timber, or of projections or piers of cement, lined and coloured in imitation of stone. The same rule applies to roughcasting and ornamental plastering. We shall illustrate this rule by the case of a plastered and whitewashed house, taken at random from a number seen from the window of the room in which we now write. Fig. 458 will, by general observers, be considered a very neat elevation ; but those who have understood the principles we have laid [down will see at once that it is totally without expression, having no appear- ance whatever of either vertical or horizontal bond. The facings to the windows convey the idea that these openings are surrounded by stone ; but there is no evidence that these stone framings rest on any thing but plaster ; the mind, therefore, does not follow up the impression made by the eye, and the imitation stone facings, for want of imitation sup- port below them to carry on the illusion, sink into mere plaster ornaments. Let the plaster in front of this building be disposed either as in figs. 459 or 460, and how dif-