QUARANTINE CULTURE: QUARRYHOUSE READING LIST

With SIP continuing, QuarryHouse has been catching up on our favorite tomes of stone. We pulled out the classic 1924 four-volume complete set of Audels Masons & Builders guide books from our extensive library. Written by American mechanical engineer Frank Duncan Graham, the books begin with a quote from English art critic John Ruskin "When we build, let us think that we build forever." Covering stone masonry, bricklaying, foundations, plasterwork, design, and concrete, while using concise language, the illustrations, diagrams, charts, graphs, and pictures make these timeless textbooks for artisans and craftspeople.

For something esoteric, try Der Fels ist mein Haus = La rocher est ma demeure =The Rock is My Home by Werner Blaser (1976). Blaser born 1924 in Basel, Switzerland, studied under Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and worked for German-American architect Mies van der Rohe as a publicist. Additional studies of classical Chinese and Japanese architecture informed his modernist building and furniture designs. In The Rock is My Home, he analyses Swiss vernacular stone architecture. These unadorned structures with their harmonious use of stone building material create a picture of rural communities.

American writer and illustrator Marcia Brown's children's book Stone Soup, fist published in 1947, retells the European fable about a poor village where three weary traveling soldiers seek sustenance. The peasants who distrust strangers hide all of the town's food, saying they have nothing to share; the soldiers respond by cooking "stone soup," from a few stones. Intrigued, the greedy villagers want to join their visitors. Soon the peasants retrieve their hidden salt, pepper, carrots, cabbage, beef, potatoes, barley, and milk to create a feast from nothing. The Portuguese have a soup called sopa de pedra or "stone soup" made of cabbage and whatever else is at hand.