STONES OF SHADYSIDE

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Nineteenth century  English artist and critic John Ruskin helped usher in the Gothic Revival with his book Stones of Venice.  Our modest task here is to identify a few of the distinctive building blocks of our church’s exterior.  Shadyside Church is an excellent example from a great stone-building era that may be ending.  The rising cost of masonry intersects the lowering life expectancy of structures at a point that makes future rock construction doubtful.

The main fields of our walls are random, quarry-faced ashlar.  Starting with the noun, ashlar is any variety of stone block, dressed on four sides to allow laying-up with a minimum of mortar.  Quarry-faced indicates the faces have been crudely squared, a cost-saving measure that contributes to their esthetic appeal.  The blocks, cut in a wide range of sizes, are arrayed without reference to a pre-planned pattern.  Thus random.

Voussoirs assemble into an arch, owing to their wedge shape.  You will find the best voussoirs in this country on the Diamond Street side of the old Allegheny County Jail.  A special-purpose voussoir is the springer – a block which anchors the arch to its pediment, the place from which it “springs.”  The photo shows a special-purpose springer, anchoring adjacent arches in an arcade. 

Some stone buildings have a low belt of sloped blocks.  This belt, or water table, originally helped shed rain away from the foundation.  It also lends the appearance of stability, which accounts for much of its use.  By the way, architects speak of the inward slope of a wall as batter.  So, if you hear of a battered wall, it has not necessarily been mistreated.

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