Category: Materials and Craft

I was standing in a damp basement in Ravenna last autumn, tracing the edge of a crumbling wall, when I realized most people look at a facade and see only a color or a texture. They talk about “heritage” as…

I was standing in a damp basement in Ravenna last Tuesday, tracing the jagged fracture of a sixteenth-century limestone block, when I saw it: a patch of grey, rigid Portland cement shoved into a joint that clearly demanded breath. It…

I was kneeling in the damp dust of a crumbling courtyard near Syracuse last autumn, my fingers tracing a hairline fracture that shouldn’t have been there. Most people look at a peeling facade and see decay, but I saw a…