DOMOTEX RECLAIMED MATERIALS
RECLAIM
Salvaged materials have long been in vogue: lumber, for example, getting a new lease of life after 100 years holding up a barn, has been a flooring staple. But there’s a new impetus in demand
Words | Richard Burton, World Show Media Photography | Shutterstock
One of the architects behind arguably contemporary London’s most celebrated restoration project – the masterpiece of gothic revival that is the Renaissance hotel at St Pancras Station - handed me one of the original Minton Hollins tiles shipped down from the industrial North more than 130 years earlier to decorate one of the main the floors. Too many to count and in various states of repair, they were soon to be restored to their Victorian splendour and re-layed exactly as they had been when the architect, George Gilbert Scott, built what was then the rather more functional Midland Grand Hotel. Urging me not to drop it, he explained how, like the original Wilton Axminster carpet design, the ornate wrought-iron ballustrading on the Grand Staircase and gold leaf ceilings, every possible detail would be restored in keeping with, not just Scott’s vision, but what was emerging 20 years ago as a growing adherence to the concept of
CLAIMING AND RECLAIMING – THE ROOTS OF RE-USE
When the Roman senate commissioned the Arch of Constantine in order to mark a victory by the emperor who bears its name over Maxentius at Milvian Bridge in AD 312, they did much more than simply create a monument to triumphalism. Taking materials from the Arch of Trajan, they set a trend in salvage that was to grow exponentially over the following centuries. In the 1700s, Europe became a hunting ground for English aristocrats in search of frescoes, statues and columns to add grandeur to their own homes – including the 7th Earl of Elgin who, controversially, took marbles from the Parthenon.
DETAILS |
rome.net/arch-constantine
restoration, backed by reuse and renewal. I’m reminded of that very moment every time I step on to those floors, often on the way in or out of mainland Europe via the Eurostar trains which draw up only yards away and were the catalyst for this project in the first place. I’m also reminded of a comment made during that visit in 2004 about the sheer mystique of literally following in the footsteps of those who had gone before and all the possibilities that can conjure up.
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