Architectural terracotta
Encyclopedia
Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in the 1860s, and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...

 and tile
Tile
A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...

s of similar colour in late Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 buildings.

It had been used before this in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 from 1824 by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Karl Friedrich Schinkel was a Prussian architect, city planner, and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassical and neogothic buildings.-Biography:Schinkel was born in Neuruppin, Margraviate of...

. Edmund Sharpe
Edmund Sharpe
Edmund Sharpe was an English architect and engineer. He started his career as an architect, initially on his own, then in partnership with Edward Paley, designing mainly churches but also some secular buildings...

 designed and oversaw the construction of the first church built almost exclusively of terracotta. This was St Stephen and All Martyrs' Church, Lever Bridge
St Stephen and All Martyrs' Church, Lever Bridge
St Stephen and All Martyrs' Church, Lever Bridge, is in Little Lever, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Walmsley, the archdeaconry of Bolton, and the diocese of Manchester...

 in Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

, built 1842-45]]. Henry Cole
Henry Cole
Sir Henry Cole was an English civil servant and inventor who facilitated many innovations in commerce and education in 19th century Britain...

, secretary to the Science and Arts Department of the UK adopted terracotta for the building which is now the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

 (1859–71) and then the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

 (1867–71), both in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse was a British architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the...

 used it in his designs when in business in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 from 1853 and London from 1865. He used a combination of buff and blue-grey terracotta in his Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...

 in London.

The colour of terracotta varies with the source of the clay. London clay gives a pale pink or buff colour, whereas the Ruabon
Ruabon
Ruabon is a village and community in the county borough of Wrexham in Wales.More than 80% of the population of 2,400 were born in Wales with 13.6% speaking Welsh....

 (North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...

) clay gives a bright red.

Terracotta had the advantage of being cheap and light. It was adaptable to mass-production techniques for stock shapes, although the plaster moulds had a limited capability for re-use. Additionally it could be freely worked by craftsmen to make custom-sculptured adornments and plaques. It was accepted as a material by the Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

 because despite seeming a mass-produced material it was hand made and designed by craftsmen. It had a manufacture time of about eight weeks and each piece had to be made over-size to allow for shrinkage as the clay body dried. To avoid cracking the pieces had to be quite thin. They were filled with concrete as they were applied to buildings.
The disadvantage of terracotta, apart from its rather uniform colour in a given district, was that it was not easy to keep clean. Town smoke made it blacken. A more modern phenomenon is the growth of naturally seeded plants and small trees which grow in the nooks and crannies of the intricate designs high above the streets now that the Victorian pollution has gone.

Terracotta went out of fashion from around the 1890s, giving way to glazed terracotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta is a ceramic masonry building material popular in the United States from the late 19th century until the 1930s, and still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments...

, or faience as it is known in Britain, which does not attract grime and is easy to clean, giving way to a more colourful architecture.

Manufacturers

  • Burmantofts Pottery
    Burmantofts Pottery
    Burmantofts Pottery was the common trading name of a manufacturer of ceramic pipes and construction materials, named after the Burmantofts district of Leeds, England....

  • Gibbs and Canning Limited
    Gibbs and Canning Limited
    Gibbs and Canning Limited was an English manufacturer of terracotta and, in particular, architectural terracotta, based in Glascote, Tamworth and founded in 1847....

  • Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company
    Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company
    Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, was a late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century brickworks, known for the manufacture of many prominent and unique architectural terracotta elements....

     of Perth Amboy, New Jersey
    Perth Amboy, New Jersey
    Perth Amboy is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The City of Perth Amboy is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 50,814. Perth Amboy is known as the "City by the Bay", referring to Raritan Bay.-Name:The Lenape...


Sources

Brick - A World History, James W P Campbell & Will Pryce, 2003, ISBN 0-500-34195-8

External links


http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/collections/local-history/social-history-images/197055127by/imageFile_480
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