Sunday 8 June 2008

Sysiphus


Thanks to Petunia girl my hands aren't bleeding this week.

2 comments:

Kimberly said...

It's a month now since you posted this. Have you finished the wall, or has the task proven truly Sysiphean?

The Architect said...

The Architect has been seriously charrette* with real work for other clients. Clients, of course, of lesser importance than The Client, but who (usually after an extremely long wait) pay fees and thus merit more attention when the rent has to be paid.
The idea of The Client paying fees was raised in conversation only once. The Architect was made to understand that hell would freeze over first and that the subject was not to be raised again.
Despite all that, the glass block wall is finished, apart from a little bit of jointing, and will be appearing soon. The next stage will be the hardest, involving scaffolding, insulation, timber, resin, bolts....etc. Preparatory works will not be very photogenic so there will be a small interlude before things liven up again.



*This is a term that dates from way back when the students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, late for their hand-in, would run through the streets of Paris with their drawings stacked up in a wheel barrow (a charrette being a French wheelbarrow). Ever since, French architects faced with mountains of work and all nighters will say 'Je suis charrette', or 'J'ai une charrette noire' literally translated as 'I am wheelbarrow' or 'I have a black wheelbarrow. It sounds equally as wierd in French as it does in English.
The term has been exported with some success and occasionally has been heard by
The Architect 'outre manche'.