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Roman Cement – Key Historic Material to Cover the Exteriors of Buildings

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Roman Cement – Key Historic Material to Cover the Exteriors of Buildings This paper was published in “RILEM Workshop Repair Mortars for Historic Masonry”, ed. C. Groot, RILEM Publications SARL, 2009, 2-11 The original publication is available at the publisher’s web site: http://www.rilem.net/ The article is copyrighted by RILEM. Readers must contact RILEM for permission to reprint or use the material in any form. ROMAN CEMENT – KEY HISTORIC MATERIAL TO COVER THE EXTERIORS OF BUILDINGS G. Adamski1, L. Bratasz1, R. Kozlowski1, N. Mayr2, D. Mucha1, , M. Stilhammerova3 and J. Weber2 1Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland 2Institute of Conservation Sciences and Restoration Technology, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria 3The Monuments Board of Slovak Republic, Slovakia Abstract Roman cements were key materials for the economic and easy manufacture of the stuccoes for the exterior of buildings during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The survey of historic buildings across Europe has revealed a considerable diversity of the historic application techniques from architectural castings, to in-situ applied renders and hand-run elements. A wide range of aggregate contents between 20 –50% was identified. The microstructure of the Roman cement pastes showed a very fine ‘groundmass’ encapsulating a significant amount of partially hydrated remnants of original cements. Historic Roman cement mortars generally combine high porosity with high mechanical strength and excellent durability. Two categories of pores have been distinguished: fine pores characteristic of well-hydrated mature Roman cement matrix and large pores characteristic of mortars strongly exposed to air. The current ROCEM project is bringing back Roman cements to the market. A broad research on the compatibility between the historic stuccoes and the new repair mortars is described. 1 1. Introduction Roman cements were natural cement binders fired from marls (limestone containing a significant amount of clay) below their sintering temperatures, i.e. between 800 and 1,100°C and grinding burnt stones to a required fineness. Their main characteristics were a short time of setting of around 15 minutes and warm yellow-to-brown colour. They were first produced in England in 1796 when James Parker patented a cement known as Parker’s or Roman cement. The material was obtained by firing clay-bearing calcareous nodules found in the London clay beds on the Isle of Sheppey, England. The success of the cement synthesis resulted from the natural intimate mixture of lime and clay (source of silica, alumina and iron oxide) in the marl, which could not be attained in any man-made mixture. Despite implied links to the Roman binders, the term ‘Roman cement’ was unknown before this date and the material was very different from the hydraulic binders used by the Romans. The technology was rapidly transferred to mainland Europe and the USA. The short setting time, warm colour, little shrinkage on setting and good durability to atmospheric influences and salt crystallization made Roman cement a favoured material for economic and easy manufacture of ornaments and renders for the exterior of buildings in the period of European Historicism and Art Nouveau (19th/early 20th century). This period of rapid urban growth still plays a major role in the culture and aesthetic appearance of central areas in most European cities. Roman cement mortar was highly recommended in contemporary technical literature and textbooks for stuccoists as ideal for plastering applications (particularly run mouldings and castings) and it is now often referred to as the exterior equivalent of gypsum plaster as it offered the same speed of set and manipulation as gypsum yet could withstand exterior conditions very effectively. It is known from contemporary sources that - e.g. in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of 1887 - the amount of Roman cement produced was five times higher than that of either Portland cement or hydraulic lime, respectively [1]. The dominance of the newer Portland cement on the market and modern functional architecture, with its total absence of ornament, brought a quick decline in the production and use of Roman cement in the years after World War I. Also the earlier craft techniques were discontinued. As a consequence, there is currently an absence of any broader information on the material characteristics, ageing behaviour and adequate technologies for protection and restoration. 2 Only recently, with growing interest in European art of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, have attempts been undertaken to investigate these historic renders and to develop strategies and adequate measures for their conservation. The current lack of appropriate binding materials - matching those available to the craftsmen of the 19th century - deprives architects and object conservators of original historic technology to restore and conserve the concerned objects. As a result the historic Roman cement decorations are replaced or repaired with modern cement products, which generally do not match the physical and mechanical properties, durability, structure and appearance of the original decorations. Hence, the preservation and restoration of the large preserved built heritage of European Historicism and Art Nouveau is still unsatisfactory. As a consequence an European Union 5th FP project entitled “ROCEM” (2003-2006) is seeking to reintroduce Roman cement to market so that restorers and conservators will be able to meet the fundamental principle of modern conservation - that the historic buildings should be repaired by using materials which are compatible with the historic substance [2]. 2. Investigations of historic buildings More than 20 historic buildings and objects rendered and decorated with typical Roman cement stuccoes were documented and sampled within the project. The samples were then subject to a range of analytical techniques to understand the material characteristics. The buildings were representative of different European areas in terms of materials, historic periods and geography. They range from Wycombe Abbey (1804), an early example of the use of Roman cement in England not long after it was patented there in 1796, to Municipal Commercial Academy in Cracow, Poland (1904) built shortly before the outbreak of World War I. The information has been collated into a historic building database available at the project website www.heritage.xtd.pl. The survey of the Roman cement stuccoes has revealed a considerable diversity of the historic application techniques. The fine flat finished renders varied in thickness between 2 - 50 mm. They could consist of a single render coat applied directly to a solid masonry background or be a sandwich structures in which the render coat was followed by the second coat providing a final level surface. The second coat might in turn be followed by a thin finish layer or set coat. Because of the fine nature of this coat the aggregates were usually sieved before mixing with the cement. It was striking to discover that Roman cement coats were possible to apply much thicker without shrinkage, sometimes up to 50 mm, when compared to lime coats which did not exceed 10-12 mm. 3 Roman cement wash, composed of the cement diluted in water, was a universal technique for finishing stuccoes (Figure 1). The cement wash is believed to be applied to fresh plastered Roman cement stuccoes. The technique was also employed to coat plain or ornamental plasterwork made of lime or Portland cements mortars to make them appear as Roman cement stucco. The grand stuccoes of historicism and Art Nouveau contained always linear or oval mouldings, like cornices, obtained by applying in situ the mortar and passing repeatedly a profile over them. It was usual to run a moulding in two or more coats, the inner coat being a coarse-grained ‘core’ on which a fine-grained thinner finish layer was applied. Roman cement was a preferred material to execute the in situ run work due to its quick setting which facilitated the progress of the process. The run work could be executed also ex situ in a plaster workshop and the fragments produced were then mounted on the façade. The prefabrication in a workshop was also typically employed for manufacturing ornaments by casting in a mould (Figure 2). As run mouldings, the casts have usually a finer outer layers and a coarse interior core. Exceptionally the ornaments were hand modelled in situ. The Roman cement stuccoes could cover the entire façade but very often they were combined with brick or stone depending on the architectural concept (Figure 3). The survey of the Roman cement stuccoes has revealed generally their excellent durability. It has been recognised that their failure has almost exclusively resulted from an improper maintenance making the stuccoes vulnerable to the chronic excessive dampness and freeze/thaw heaving. In the upper parts of the facades the source of dampness has been damaged or ineffective exterior water handling system leading to rain water leaks (Figure 4). In the area above the ground ineffective drainage and waterproofing of the foundation walls could have led to the intrusion of moisture and destruction of the renders of the façade, mainly due to transmission and crystallization of salts. One of the main conservation problems recognised have been later repair and restoration measures which involved painting-over or re-plastering, often irreversibly, the original surfaces (Figure 5). The unaltered Roman cement facades, preserving their original colour and architectural surface, are therefore rare in spite of the fact that the technique was used on a massive scale during the period of rapid urban growth in Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The reason is vulnerability of the architectural heritage of the period to redevelopment and renovation projects that fail to understand and to take into account in particular fabric, texture, colour and traditional pattern of the facades. These features, carefully evaluated and conserved for monuments of earlier periods, are under-appreciated and viewed as disposable as far as this more modern architecture is concerned.
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