The Evaluation of Protective Coatings and Their Effect on Salt Formation on Brick Substrate

ed composition of space, mass and surface.As received from Jones, its greatest English protagonist. architecture should be 'solid, proportionable according to rule, masculine and unaffected. In the hands of Wren the style became less austere and more intimate, something of a baroque surprise and movement appeared. Under Dutch influence brick became the favored material. ^^ The use of paints increased as the popularity of these designs, eventually being adapted for both public buildings and private (if usually elite) dwellings, spread. As the century continued, masonry also became more common, especially among the wealthy. In the Middle Colonies and the south, houses were commonly made of brick. In England, masonry buildings became the norm as the decimation of forests made wood prohibitively expensive. While these are the norms, there are certainly exceptions in all of these cases, as taste and preference played a significant part in the choice of construction materials, as it does today. When considering the use of masonry, local conditions perhaps played the largest part, above stylistic concerns. As stated above, grand houses of stone were really only common in Pennsylvania, despite the dictate of tastemakers and writers of freatises. -' John C. Poppeliers, S. Allen Chambers, Jr., and Nancy B. Schwartz, What Style is It? : A Guide to American Architecture, (New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1983), 18. ^^ Kimball, Domestic Architecture ofthe American Colonies and ofthe Early Republic, 53. 11 Kimball suggests that to gain a better understanding of the development of masonry architecture (and hence, its decoration and protection), one should look not to texts that were prescriptive tools, but to the buildings themselves. The type and method of masonry construction and the detailing of the exterior reveal a great deal. Typically, brick of this period was laid in Flemish bond, but this was not the rule. Occasionally, there were deviations from this; dark or glazed headers were used in a pattern as described above. Moulded bricks were used for the water table, and other differences indicate a progression in masonry construction and aesthetics. All the while, artists and masons improved their skills. Figure 1.1 Mount Pleasant. From Roger W. Moss, Historic Houses of Philcuii'ipliin, I'^'^S, p. 95. From an early date, stucco was employed as a covering for brick and rubble masonry, especially in Charleston and the Philadelphia area. According to Kimball, "increased warmth and weatherprootlng seem to have been the principal reasons for its employment rather than a desire to imitate stone. ""' He illustrates this argument by discussing Mount Pleasant in Philadelphia (1763-65). where the facades are finished in -' Ibid, 68. 12 stucco struck like ashlar while the brick quoins are left unfinished, (Figure 1.1) and states that only after the Revolutionary War did the appearance of exposed brick become aesthetically objectionable. Along with architectural texts previously discussed, newspaper advertisements and early city directories show that the availability of paint materials and the number of professional painters increased. The businessmen featured in these publications include importers, merchants selling pigments, and painters themselves. While some painters were rooted in a specific area, usually a city, it was more common in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century for a painter to take his business "on the road", painting in rural areas. ^'' The practice gained momentum, when in 1736, the first ready mixed paints became available; although, they were not widely used until the 1 860s when re-sealing paint cans were developed. Until then, paint was mixed much as it had been for millennia: by mixing dry pigments and binder (often oil) with a muUer on a marble or other smooth stone slab. Different techniques were used for interior and exterior painting. Due to the lack of physical evidence for many of the instances of exterior coatings, one must look to the surviving documentation for clues. English estimator's books, reprinted in America in the early eighteenth century, list the prices for each element that was to be painted and the most popular colors: "stone, fimber, and blue for painting 'windows, doors, rails and banisters, for stair-cases, shop-windows, and mundilions. '"; while the 1700 edition of a similar book describes painting "outside works; as doors, shop-windows. Window Cases, Pediments, Architraves, Friezes and Cornices, and all other Timber-works which are ^* Candee, "Housepaints in Colonial America: Their Materials, Manufacture and Application," 2-3. 13 exposed to the weather. ""' As these books do not Hst the cost or materials for painting exteriors, even clapboards, this supports the case that trim was pamted, while often, the rest of the facade was not. While this could mean that the painting of trim was the first step in exterior painting in America, it may also indicate that those who could afford to paint their trim could also afford to have a stone or brick house that was not painted. Thus, many Georgian buildings of the eighteenth century only had painted trim. This is evidenced at Thomas Turner's Cliveden in Germantown, Pennsylvania, (Figure 1.2) where in 1766 only the bargeboards, cornices, eaves, windows, shutters, doors and door cases are painted on an otherwise brick house. ''' It should also be noted that the trim was the first element to be painted (usually with a paint having insecticidal or biocidal qualities), sometimes before construction was complete, giving support to the thought that it would have been painted regardless of stylistic concerns. "^ Figure 1.2 Cliveden, From Roger W. Moss, Historic Houses ofPhihiclclphia, 1998, p 117. The earliest large-scale exterior coating in America was done on wood clapboards with tar, obviously for protective reasons. This practice was done throughout the