Comments on: Architectural Terra-cotta

Architectural Terra-cotta

spock — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:10:08 -0800

Terra-cotta (Italian for "earth-cooked") was once a versatile material for architecture ornamentation. (A short video about the process) [QuickTime] It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings. The Natural History Museum in London has been called architect Albert Waterhouse's Terracotta Menagerie. (Take the Terracotta Tour.) Examples of architectural terracotta in America: Buffalo, NY, St. Louis, MO, Washington State, and many, many buildings in NYC (including 200 Gargoyles and Chimera salvaged from lost buildings). Just when you thought the past might be vanishing a little too quickly, terra cotta is coming back in new ways. See also: Understanding and Concerving Terracotta and The Preservation of Historic Glazed Architectural Terra-Cotta.

By: pmbuko

pmbuko — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:20:54 -0800

Also good with berry sauce. Oh terra-cotta.

By: luminous phenomena

luminous phenomena — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:35:19 -0800

Hey spock, great minds think alike. I'd been wanting to make a post like this for awhile and never got around to it. I'm glad you did. I only have one link to add, Gladding McBean, one of California's oldest architectural terra cotta makers. The company has created pieces that can be seen all over the world. The company still produces architectural terra-cotta.

By: spock

spock — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:40:06 -0800

As does Boston Valley Terra Cotta. (I believe that they are the only two in the U.S.). Click on "Projects" for some restoration projects around the country.

By: quin

quin — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:57:45 -0800

It's good for building armies as well.

By: giuonline

giuonline — Thu, 31 May 2007 15:20:20 -0800

One of the best place in Italy, where you can buy terracotta articles (plates) is in Sicily: Caltagirone, a little town near Palermo. Caltagirone has also enjoyed a resurrection of it's ceramics and majolica industry in the last two centuries. It's a great place

By: wfrgms

wfrgms — Thu, 31 May 2007 15:46:34 -0800

Great post, but you forget the Wrigley Building in Chicago. One of the most striking features of the Wrigley Building results from being clad in approximately 250,000 individual glazed terra cotta tiles, the most extensive use of terra cotta in the world during the time of construction. Each tile is uniquely identified in a computer database that enables consistent tracking and maintenance of each and every tile located on the building.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Thu, 31 May 2007 17:52:26 -0800

Excellent post, spock - thank you!

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Thu, 31 May 2007 19:43:02 -0800

I could still hear the musicians cajoling those thousands of clay horses and horsemen through the squeeze when I woke beside Carlotta. Life-size, also. Also terra-cotta. The sky was still a terra-cotta frieze over which her grandfather still held sway with the set square, fretsaw, stencil, plumb line, and carpenter's pencil his grandfather brought from Roma. Proud-fleshed Carlotta. Hypersarcoma. For now our highest ambition was simply to bear the light of the day we had once been planning to seize -"Beijing" from Horse Latitudes by Paul Muldoon