Masonry has existed as a form of construction for thousands
of years. Its lineage predates recorded
history, and is steeped in tradition and long-established practice. While other fields of human endeavor have
undergone fundamental changes and have evolved over time, the basic practice of
masonry has not really changed much over thousands of years. A mason from 1,000 BC would recognize today’s
masonry techniques as being very much akin to what was practiced over 3,000
years ago.
Why has masonry remained fundamentally unchanged for so
long? What factors have contributed to
masonry remaining essentially static over such a long period of human history
amidst dramatic changes and new developments in virtually all other fields of human
creativity?
This is a curious question which is difficult to
answer. Others have addressed this
question, and their findings are worth looking at. An article from 1989 by Clayford T. Grimm
asks this question, and is appropriately titled “Why are there so few
innovations in masonry?” Mr. Grimm posed
this question to a steering committee for a workshop on masonry research
sponsored by the National Science Foundation (USA). Committee members included the Masonry
Institute of America, the National Concrete Masonry Association, and Clemson
University faculty members. Their
findings are noteworthy, and are listed as follows:
1. U.S. tort law.
2. The bureaucratic
building code process.
3. The unfunded
process of writing consensus standards.
4. Industry
fragmentation. “Economic pressures for
fast construction time leave little time for the learning curve required by new
ideas. The construction industry mind-set
supports the status quo.”
5. Research
fragmentation. No government agency is
funded to research masonry problems.
Given today’s fiscal challenges of government, there is not likely to be
any such agency in the foreseeable future.
6. Educators teach
what they know and few of them know much about masonry.
7. Designers are reluctant
to use masonry structurally because of poor jobsite quality control.
8. Academicians who
dream up new names for old ideas and make a career out of it.
9. Designers who don’t
care about mason productivity.
10. Lack of financial
incentive. “Why should a builder build a
$50,000 house for a low-income family when for about the same effort he can
build a $150,000 house and make a lot more money?”
[This article was originally published by The Masonry
Society, and presented at a workshop sponsored by the National Science
Foundation in Washington DC, August 28-30, 1988]
While the points made in the article as discussed above are
important and noteworthy, it seems that there is still more to the question of
why masonry remains essentially unchanged and is resistant to innovation.
One seemingly obvious factor points to the long history of
masonry, across geography and among different societies,
countries and cultures. Because masonry
has been practiced for so long, and has been developed as an art for so long, it
has already been rather fully developed.
As such, there appears to be little room for improvement or
innovation. This may seem trivial or
obvious, yet I believe it is worth stating.
The notion that masonry has been fully developed over several
thousand years and cannot be substantially improved upon is strengthened by the
contemporary practice of masonry research.
Contemporary masonry research is primarily involved with the analysis of
Romanesque, gothic, medieval and other ancient masonry structures. Most notable masonry engineers have spent
their careers looking back at some of the great architecture of humanity’s past
accomplishments to gain a more complete understanding of the engineering involved. For example, Jacques Heyman has done
extensive analysis of masonry architecture in several books such as The
Stone Skeleton (Structural Engineering of Masonry Architecture) Cambridge University Press, 1995. Mr. Heyman has a long list of such
publications, each of which looks at explaining the engineering involved in old
masonry structures. Current masonry
engineering work has a real focus on the past.
Another factor in explaining the lack of innovation brought
to masonry is the mistaken notion that old ideas re-discovered and
re-introduced are in fact new. One example
of this is the thin-shelled catalan arches originally developed in Europe
(especially Valencia, Spain) in the 14th century. This type of masonry was re-introduced as a “new”
type of construction in the US by Raphael Guastavino in the 19th
century in the US. More recently,
similar work is being done by people at Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
it is also being touted as “new” but it remains essentially unchanged since the
14th century. MIT’s work on
catalan arches is essentially derivative of much earlier work. This phenomenon is close to #8 on the list
which began this blog, as described by C.T. Grimm.
Finally, there is a curious and fascinating observation made
by Frank J. Sulloway in his watershed book Born to Rebel (Vintage Books, 1997; New York Times “notable
book of the year”). “Sulloway's most
important finding is that eldest children identify with parents and authority,
and support for the status quo, whereas younger children rebel against it.
Drawing on the work of Darwin and the new science of evolutionary psychology,
he transforms our understanding of personality development and its origins in
the family.” Sulloway describes how
virtually all truly innovative ideas are the product of a last-born or
later-born child, and explains this as a means to gain their parent’s
attention. It is essentially a Darwinian
survival mechanism. Conversely, first-borns
are much more conservative and tend to end up in positions of power and
authority. These factors combine to
create a scenario wherein a last-born innovator is presenting an innovative
idea to a CEO or president or other authority who is typically a first-born
conservative thinker. While this idea
may appear esoteric and irrelevant at first, I believe it has real merit.
Where do I see myself and my innovations in masonry? I am a last-born child (youngest of
four). Are my ideas real innovations? I believe they are; others do too. I have had several US patents awarded for my
ideas. They were also identified as a “Cutting
Edge Technology” by the American Concrete Institute. Finally, there is no other masonry system
like the one which I have developed. How
can this be? I do not imagine myself
some sort of unique genius. I think I
have been fortunate to have investigated ground which others have not. Part of this is due to the fact that geodesic
geometry was most recently developed by R. Buckminster Fuller (first developed
by the ancient Greeks). It was my good
fortune that Fuller assigned great value to how much a building weighed (as I
have discussed several times earlier on this blog). This aspect of Fuller’s thinking was closely
held by his followers, which meant that masonry was never considered as a
suitable construction material; it was always thought to be too heavy. His bias against massive material such as
masonry left a niche for me to investigate and develop as I have. My experience as a ceramic artist and mold
maker provided me with the insight and awareness of mold releases, undercuts
and interlocking features. My education
in geology and fault mechanisms opened my eyes to conjugate shearing. Through focus and hard work I brought these
things together in an innovative masonry design.
Is there room for real innovation in masonry today? I think there is!
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