Plastering - Plain and Decorative

Citation

Hurst, L. (1998), "Plastering - Plain and Decorative", Structural Survey, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.1998.11016dae.002

Plastering - Plain and Decorative

Plastering ­ Plain and DecorativeWilliam MillarDonhead Publishing Ltd1997xix + 604 pp.Keywords Buildings, Design, Plasterwork

For anyone interested in or who needs to know about plastering, this book provides answers to all the questions you did not know whom to ask and, as a bonus, answers many questions you had never thought to ask but to which the answers are both interesting and useful. It contains 35 pages of contemporary advertisements, 52 plates and over 500 figures. The first edition was published by Batsford in 1898. There is an introduction by Tim Ratcliffe and Jeff Orton.

The full title: Plastering, Plain and Decorative ­ A Practical Treatise on the Art and Craft of Plastering and Modelling. Including full description of the various tools, processes, and appliances employed; also of moulded or "fine" concrete as used for fireproof stairs and floors, paving, architectural dressings, etc, etc. Together with an account of historical plastering in England, Scotland, and Ireland, accompanied by numerous examples ­ gives only a glimpse of the scope covered.

Mr Millar was a Scottish plasterer who worked in London and became conscious of the lack of any publication recording the traditional skills handed down from generation to generation. His remedy for that gap in building literature is written from a practical viewpoint. He not only knew how things were done, his living was doing them, and hence this digest of his experience is as useful today to anyone concerned with carrying out conserving or reporting on old plaster work, as it was 100 years ago.

The coverage is wider than would be expected because it includes everything that was in the trade of "plastering" at that time. If you want to know how to make scagliola or composition or gesso of various sorts or carton-pierre or papier-mâché or sgraffitto, now you know where to find it. There are also interesting chapters on modelling in Portland cement and on concrete which was of course innovative at the time, as well as all the more obvious aspects of designing, modelling and casting plasters of all types.

This welcome reprint deserves wide publicity for making all this practical information readily accessible at an affordable price.

Lawrie Hurst