Black buildings

It is odd now to think that until not much more than a mere quarter of a century or so ago many of our buildings, especially in major cities, were black – encrusted with the residues from centuries of burning carbon (in the form of wood & coal) to provide our ancestors with heat & light &, latterly, motive power, when oil was added to the mix.

Although I saw it many times, I cannot now conjure in my mind’s eye a picture of Parliament Square surrounded by a black Houses of Parliament (including Big Ben), a black Treasury Building & a black Westminster Abbey.

We, I think, just took it for granted that the underlying stone was grey, for this was the colour of the bits of the buildings which got a regular washing from the rain.

Then the great hose down began, once we could be confident that that Clean Air Acts had put an end to the worst of these deposits. I wonder if the cost (has anyone ever tried to calculate the total?) was justified on pure aesthetic grounds, or whether cost/benefit analysis was used to demonstrate that the clean-up would pay for itself in reduced costs for maintenance & repair of buildings whose useful (& safe) life would be extended once they were no longer being eaten away by acid.

And what a revelation. Many of those iconic buildings emerged in hues of warm sand or honey; others in an astonishing range (from orange to purple) of so-called red brick or terracotta. An amazing range of carved or other ornamental detailing emerged. Even concrete had its beauty as the eye was not distracted from form & proportion by the coat of dirty grey.

All that heat & light & movement had extracted a heavy toll on health & in increased mortality– though at least it saved London from its predicted fate of disappearing under piles of horse manure.

The inside of the collar of shirt, dress or blouse is no longer black at the end of a day in town, though it is certainly more grubby than one exposed only to country air.

We can sympathise with the artist’s struggle to work in the perpetual gloom, but we can treasure the their impressionistic paintings.
I wonder where all the soot went? Down the drain – to end up where? Could it have made its own contribution to the warming of the seas around our shores.

Links
Cleaning Of London's Public Buildings: House of Lords 12 November 1964
[PDF] Fifty years on: The struggle for air quality in London since the great smog of December 1952
[PDF] Why William Morris Left His Joyous Gard