For months I have been watching my neighbor’s roof.
Sometimes with binoculars but mostly with my naked eye. My obsession started in the summer and
has now continued into autumn. The
roof in question belongs to a brownstone on my block and my apartment on the ninth floor of
a nearby building gives me an aerial view over it. It is the perfect perspective from which to gaze in awe, but the object of my
fascination is not what you might think.
For months the workers there have been building an
additional floor on top of the brownstone and as a designer, I find this
deeply interesting. It started
with some neat men walking around the roof and pointing. The next thing I noticed was a team of
workers removing the old tarry roof, replacing the ancient wooden joists with
steel ones for support, then putting down a simple plywood floor to stand
on.
After that, the real construction began. Plan, scheme, process, materials, it is
all there. The whole practice of
making a thing – in this case a new living space where none was before – was
unfolding down there below me. I
felt like some sort of master builder watching it happen, except for the simple
fact that I am just a bylooker, a peeper from afar.
The structure they are working on is about 20 feet wide by 50
feet long and it is composed of four materials only…brick, cinder block, wood,
mortar. Watching the men working
is a study in the art of craft.
They are efficient in their moves, little effort wasted. The carpenter cuts and nails his wood,
the mason grinds and sets his bricks, there does not seem to be any foreman;
they each know their task and move through it with precision.
Two of the carpenters set their ceiling joists –
massive planks of wood – into notches they have cut into the cinderblock with a
Sawzall. Adjust, adjust, then
readjust. I know this part of the
process very well and tell my students that if they cannot tolerate changing
and reworking, they should switch their majors to accounting where the numbers
always add up the same way, or at least are supposed to.
I also notice that the edges where things meet seem to
matter. Seams between the brick
and the cinder block cannot be too wide since they end up being filled with
mortar; the wood must be protected with some sheathing from the mortar that
will hold it in place; wood has to abut wood to create the strongest connection. Edges
matter in all design…those places where text and image join up, for example, or
the ways the shapes in a logo meet to unify the form.
But of all the building going on down there, I am most
intrigued by the bricklayer. He must work around the wooden frames of future windows and
doors, squeeze himself between the cinder block walls, begin and end at the exact
right edge, make a thing that will not budge. He is orderly, masterly, relentless in building his walls
brick by brick. Measuring the
space, grinding the bricks, buttering the edges, placing each piece, tapping
and leveling. He is a maestro of the trowel, moving at such a steady
pace that I can see why the masonic
craft had an elemental appeal.
I envy him for this.
Everything in life is inconclusive, vague. In teaching and in writing, and even much of graphic design,
the goals and achievements constantly shift and change. Opinions, attitudes, contradictions
muddy the waters. Did I really
accomplish what I set out to do?
Will my work work the way it should? Yet at the end of each day, the bricklayer – with little need for philosophy I imagine –
builds his wall. And when he is
done, it is done, and no one can doubt it, nor the thing he made.
I wonder if the owners will even notice or even think twice
about the handiwork that went into the outer walls of their fine new living
space, walls they will never even see.
I doubt it and think to take some photos to give to them
next year when the job is done. But I will not do that, of course.
Some design is meant to disappear into the bigger picture, and the
individual who made left only to briefly admire the result…and then move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment