I read in MLB of the superb works of the Masterbuilders, and I marvel at the hours of study that are made of the existing (full sized) buildings, and all the stones calculated and placed in the computer, then made into a wonderful miniature (or not so miniature) Ankerstein replica of the original. All this sets a standard that I cannot emulate, in spite of my admiration for the process and the results.
I began building with Ankerstein 60 years ago when my parents gave me a set without a box or plans, so I did not know who the maker was. I enjoyed making my own invented buildings through my teenage years with these and a quantity of English Lott’s Bricks that are very similar, but much simpler with a small range of stones and slightly different size.
Then ten years ago when retired from work, I found some sets of Richter’s at Antiques Fairs and bought them. Now I had at last discovered what these stones were, and I dug out my old set that had been a long time in storage and began to build again. What I have now is quite a lot of small sets and part sets of GK - AF & NF, KK - AF & NF, and I continue to build, in the same way that I started, without any plans. I just start building and go on until I think it is finished or I run out of stones.
This is not so difficult. It is, I think, the way the artist works as opposed to the technician. The painter starts with an empty canvass and puts paint on it and goes on until it is covered. Sometimes he changes the shape or the colour while doing it , but he does not work out on his computer what colour he will use or how much of that colour. This is not a criticism of the technology of building, it is just a different way of doing it.
The English architect C. F. A. Voysey who designed many houses at the beginning of the 20th Century wrote ’There is a wide difference between the influence of memory not deliberately referred to, and determined espousal of a pre-existing design. What you remember is your own, what you sketch you steal.’ I always follow this idea when I make things, be it furniture, boats, or Ankerstein buildings.
When, this Winter, I decided to build a War Memorial, I thought of the Thiepval Arch in France designed by Edwin Lutyens and finished in 1931, it is 150 feet/ 46 metres high. I did not look at a photograph of it, I just started building with the idea in my head. I could not make it close to the original as the largest arches that I have are #95, so I had to use intermediate columns to get the scale of the building about right. As almost all my stones are old, and some rather worn and discoloured, they are well suited to making old style buildings, which is fortunate as I prefer to make old buildings.
The first version of the memorial was quite old fashioned with battlements and spires, and I was quite pleased with it. But then I looked at the picture of the real monument, and saw how far I had wandered from the inspiration. I sent photos to my friend Gary Birch who likes a more modern style of building and builds things in the style found on the Richter’s boxes of the 1920s. He questioned why I had not kept closer to the Deco/Moderne style of the original. So I took up the challenge and rebuilt the Memorial in the newer style.
I kept the small corner towers at the base, but moved them slightly further apart, and built a new bigger centre tower, with a smaller one on top. But I made a serious error in the structure: the upper tower was carried on a floor of two banks of #23 resting on a single wood beam in the middle, but the ends of the beam were not adequately supported. The building stood for a few minutes complete, then when I was making a small adjustment, the upper tower descended into the lower one, and wrecked almost the whole building.
I must say in my defence that I am careful to make the structure sound, and this was the first time in ten years of building that I have had such a disaster. It was fortunate that I build on a cloth covered table that normally makes a soft landing to any stone that drops on it, and on this occasion there were only two small stones that broke, and a few small chips. The rebuilding was finished again the same evening, but with proper construction, and I was even more pleased with it than with the earlier version.
I was surprised how easy it was to refashion the details to make a big change to the of the character of the building; even so, it is still my own, not Lutyens’. Having used most of my stones for the main structure, I used what was left over to make the cloister that surrounded it thus making more of a picture. I photograph each building when it is finished, and it stays on the table for perhaps one month before demolition. I don’t think it would be of much value to make plans as my collection of stones is so haphazard that the plan would not be related to any of the numbered sets.
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