PRELUDE: DREAM & REALITY
Mud for Roofing
The peasant built his house of mud, or mud bricks, which he dug out the ground and dried in the sun. For centuries, the peasant had been wisely and quietly exploiting the obvious building material, while we, with our modern school-learned ideas, never dreamed of such a ludicrous substance as mud for so serious a creation as a house.
But why not?
Certainly, the peasant's houses may be cramped, dark, dirty and inconvenient, but this was no fault of the mud brick. There was nothing that could not be put right by good design and a broom.
Why not use this heaven-sent material for our country houses? And why not, indeed, make the peasants' own houses better? Why should there be any difference between a peasant's house and a landowner's? Both build of mud brick, design both well, and both could afford their owners beauty and comfort.
Houses built for rich clients were certainly an improvement on the old town type of country house, but largely because they were more beautiful. In spite of their economical mud brick walls, they were not so very much cheaper than houses built of more conventional materials, because timber for the roofs was expensive.
Trial and Error
Looking for ways to get around the shortage (steel and timber supplies were completely cut off soon after the war started), there were still mud bricks. He could build walls, but had nothing to roof them with.
Usually wooden vaults are used in these situations, but they require special skills to insure the voussoirs are pointing towards the centre of the curve, this is a method of construction beyond the peasants. It is the kind of thing used in building a bridge.
After many attempts, without centring the vaults, they completely fell down.
Nubians knew a way to build vaults that stood up during construction without using any support at all, to roof their houses and mosques.
Nubia: Ancient Technique of Vaulting
Fatimid Cemetery. Aswan - a group of elaborate shrines, dating from the tenth century, built entirely in mud brick, where vaults and domes are employed with splendid and assurance.
Monastery of St. Simeon. Here too mud brick domes and vaults are employed, but the
More and more confirmation of suspicions that the traditional materials and methods of the Egyptian peasant were more fit for use by modern architects, and that the solution to Egypt's housing problem lay in Egypt's history.
Comments