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The Maintenance and Repair of Stone Assemblages

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Abstract

The practices of repair and maintenance, critical practices in reproducing the material world, are the focus of this chapter. The analysis concentrates on one extraordinary building, Melbourne University’s Newman College, and explores how its crumbling material constitution has required constant repair and maintenance since it was completed in 1918. Assemblage theories are drawn upon to highlight the multiple agencies, including water, heat and biological colonisation that have continuously transformed stone surfaces and demanded strategies of maintenance and repair. I identify how different repair techniques have been mobilised at different times at this building. These efforts have solicited invention, experimentation and testing, and I show how they have also been surrounding by contesting aesthetic and technical approaches. In contextualising the discussion, I emphasise that such practices involve the forging of new supportive networks and associations, as well as the assignation of value to particular buildings such as Newman College to ensure that they endure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    Tim Edensor

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  1. Tim Edensor
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Correspondence to Tim Edensor .

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Edensor, T. (2020). The Maintenance and Repair of Stone Assemblages. In: Stone. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4650-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4650-1_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-4649-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-4650-1

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