I know, I know: "grotesque"
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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I'm a Stonemason, the actual issue, beyond modern architecture not taking weather into proper regard(I.e. shedding rain as a part of design) and more of minimalist bent to modern buildings, is the lack of skilled stone cutters. It's a dying trade, and at least where I am (Scotland) schools keep closing down as there's not enough students to keep the schools open.
The platform to run on would be to support and encourage trades and keeping the old knowledge alive.
It's just another trade being eliminated by cheap manufacturing. Anyone with a 3D printer could download a gargoyle design, create an injection mold, and fill it with a fiber-plastic that resembles stone at a distance. While it requires talent and investment upfront, you could manufacture thousands of gargoyles in the time it takes a stonemason to make one by hand. It could be lighter, more detailed, and cheaper. And if you were to create market demand, you'll find 100 knockoff manufacturers coming out of countries without labor laws or IP protections.
Those cheap ones are available in cementious materials, they'd be fine for new build stuff, but that wouldn't fly with historic buildings, where it's often government mandate that things are replaced like for like. I work in conservation, and when we pull a stone, the replacement is often sourced from the same quarry (if possible the same vein) as the original. Mortar matching is also a thing, where a sample is sent into the lab, and the exact same mixture is used, right down to the bits of shell from the same beach if possible.
Also those cheap ones really don't have the lasting power of actual stone.
When you put it that way, I might have to start installing gargoyles on buildings myself.
Imho, do it. We need a little more decorative element in our buildings. Brutalism is not good.
I'll buy one, but I'm not going to make them. I barely have time to get the dishes done and keep up with laundry.
Water jet and a block of stone.
We don't need to make that many gargoyles though. They were mostly installed on high cost architectural buildings, not houses.
I'm any case, it only took this guy 17 seconds to make one from some the old fashioned way:
https://youtube.com/shorts/djbjbFXyN9E?si=NZVpBbJZqrbShXCS