Page 46 - Studio International - May 1969

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road of railway sleepers was laid for about Restoration was the next step. Stuart Wise, areas. We had some slides of the Merzbarn
fifty yards to where the lorry was waiting. then on the staff at Newcastle, and I began it taken in 1963, when the process of decay was
The wall was winched slowly along on a track in the summer vacation of 1966. The chief much less advanced, and these proved in­
of steel plates. The ground was saturated and problem was that due to changes in humidity valuable in the retouching work.
with the wall on board it took the best part and temperature over the years, the painted A further problem was to reconstruct the parts
of a day to drive the wagon down the track surface, the top skim of plaster and a skin of oil of the work which had been lost in the re­
to the road. paint, had sprung away from the underlying moval, the bottom fourteen inches and parts
14 The wall arrived in Newcastle on Octo­ plaster. This shell was nowhere more than at either side. I had taken squeezes of these
ber 4 and was put into store, still horizontal, about½ of an inch thick and in many places parts before the removal started, but they
in a specially built insulated hut with a heater much thinner. It was extremely fragile and had could not be used directly because the white
to keep the frost out and help to dry it. Here broken in several places, leaving holes through plaster they were made of could not be satis­
on June 21, 1966, the wall is being taken the to the plaster beneath. We discovered that factorily tinted to match the brownish-grey of
few yards to its final site. most of the central section was in this state. It the original. Schwitters had applied the plas­
15 The alcove, cantilevered out from the was impossible to shrink the shell back on to ter in these parts in a very free rough way
side of the new Hatton Gallery to take the its support, and so the voids had to be filled with a trowel and a knife and they had not
wall, is at second floor level above a roadway, to make the top surface secure. We decided to been much worked over. I decided to make
and the rear wall was already in position. You use a mixture of PVA and fine chalk, as being these parts directly by hand, using Schwitters'
can see it in the background. The wall had the least likely to react adversely with the technique. The most difficult part of the job
to be lowered in through the open slot at the fabric, and because it retained a certain was to match the plaster. British Gypsum
top. The weight and height necessitated an elasticity, in case the surface should continue Limited analysed a sample of the original and
enormous crane, the biggest road crane in the to move. A small test area was solid after a identified it as one of their products. Un­
country we were told. The slot was, in fact, couple of days and showed no ill effects, and fortunately, since 194 7, the manufacturing
too small and I had to cut off one of the so we went ahead on the rest. All cracks and process had been so improved as to render the
projections before the wall could go in. gaps were stopped with plasticine and we colour a rich pink.
16 There was not room for a covering over began to pump in the filler at the highest We had to be wary of doing too much work. It
the face of the wall. A gust of wind or a shower point with a hypodermic syringe. It was not would have been grossly out of character to
of rain could have done serious damage, but until the filler began to run out at the most have made the Merzbarn look new, but on
mercifully the morning was still and clear and surprising places that we fully realized the the other hand the structure had to be made
the wall slid in without a hitch. A consign­ extent of the voids. After a lot of pumping the strong enough to last. We hope that a balance
ment of rough local stone was brought from a space was filled, and when set, the surface was has been struck. In fact, even now, the surface
quarry tip in Langdale and one of Laing's quite firm. The holes where the shell had is still not completely stable, and despite air
masons who was skilled at drystone walling broken through were made good with plaster conditioning, new cracks are appearing.
built up the area around the wall. and then retouched to match the surrounding The collages of the few years after 1920, when
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