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September 23, 2007
An uncommon cornerstone
I visited St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Waterloo, NY, yesterday to take some pictures. It really has a most unusual cornerstone - the inscription stretches around the corner! This is a single piece of stone - what might look like a seam is actually a drafted margin, a line indicating where the joint would be. The stone above shows the same technique - many (if not all) the corners on the building have this minor masonry refinement.
My graduate professor of things Greek always explained drafted margin masonry as a way of either emphasizing the blocky nature of the blocks by giving the roughened (rusticated) blocks a smooth edge or a way of making brick or smaller stones look like larger ones by drafting the fictitious margins of larger units. Either way, drafted margin masonry is an elegant touch here.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at September 23, 2007 5:02 PM