MONUMENTAL

Worlds in stone.

In his debut memoir, British stonemason and conservator Warrack offers an illuminating reflection on his craft. In the 1970s, after studying history and training as a mason, he began a four-year apprenticeship at the famed Canterbury Cathedral, where, besides honing his technique, he observed how the intricate structure was built and how it stayed together—not only the dimensions and design, but also the quality of stone and mortar and the way that those materials responded to air, moisture, and time. After Canterbury, he went to Venice, where he worked in the palazzo that was to become the Guggenheim Museum; from there, he entered a conservator program on the island of San Servolo and worked for a while in Venice. But finding housing was so difficult that he moved to Rome, then undergoing an extensive program of refurbishment leading up to the 1990 World Cup. His jobs included removing meter-thick pigeon waste from the facade of a chapel. He writes: “We would look up at the row of pigeons sitting on the roof of the sports shop across the road, tilting their heads at us accusingly, as if to say, ‘It’s about time someone cleaned our toilet.’” Other commissions have taken him around the world: to Cambodia, where restoring the Preah Ko temple became the first of many projects that he engaged in over 30 years, including as chief stone conservator at Angkor Wat; in Africa, he has worked in Lalibela, Ethiopia, where an ancient king aimed to build a New Jerusalem; in the United Arab Emirates, a newly excavated temple was at the mercy of Gulf weather; in Lebanon, he trained Syrian refugees and Lebanese participants in stonemasonry; and in the Great Zimbabwe, he encountered the biggest stone heritage site in sub-Saharan Africa. Besides affording him the “joy of crafting beauty and order out of stone,” masonry, as he practices it, honors a site’s physical, cultural, and spiritual history.

A captivating, informative journey with an expert guide.