John Gaw Meem at Acoma by Wingert-Playdon Kate;

Author:Wingert-Playdon, Kate;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

The Structure Reveals More Information

With work about to restart, Reuter described where the job was on July 17. He had one tower ready to build and was waiting for John Meem to come and see them. He noted that, as the towers were similar, design decisions for both could be made by observing the one tower. On July 19 Reuter confirmed that the job was restarted. He had a crew that was working slowly but at least getting something accomplished. They started the week cleaning up around the towers, separating dirt that could be used for making adobe from white plaster that had covered the lower part of the front façade of the church. A pick was used to remove the plaster surface. Then the white plaster waste, which was not good material for the adobe mix, was picked up from the ground at the base of the tower, separated from the mud that would be reused to make mortar. The towers were found to have been covered with an adobe block veneer. Reuter reported that when they disassembled the tower, they found that the core was made of rock set in mud mortar. Many repairs from past maintenance cycles were discernible. Reuter also reported that the east façade of the church was in “deplorable” condition. Under the surface plaster they found a wall much in need of repair. Reuter stated that they had to remove what amounted to two tons of material with a pickax before they felt certain that they were rid of all of the rotten material. Unlike what they had found in other areas of the church, the adobes were not well made. In removing bad material they took out a piece of the wall from the church door to the tower that varied from about five to eight feet in height and extended about two feet in from the outer surface. As Reuter described the wall,

the seam reaches on up and is without doubt an ancient one but as the outer wall showed no rent, nothing could be gained in tearing it away any further. In fact if I proposed to follow up the rent I would have to make very extensive preparations to protect the wall before proceeding further.

Reuter speculated that the bad state of the wall could explain why the front façade, in particular the towers, had been remade at the turn of the century. He was not pleased to find the wall in such a state. He was once more looking at an unanticipated condition that would take time to fix. He told Meem it was a “disappointment” that the work would “devour considerable of [his] store of rock” and they would have to gather more. Given the uncertain stability of the wall, he knew that its repair would take priority. Frustration is not uncommon when working with ancient structures, as Reuter noted in the July 19 letter: “You can not know the extent of the reperition necessary in an old adobe building until you get through with the job.

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