Formstone

Form Stone (English as shape stone, but not to be confused with the form of stone) was a method of cladding by means of artificial stone, which was popular in the 1940s and 1950s in the United States.

Invention and use

The shape Stone method was developed in 1937 by the Baltimore entrepreneur Albert Knight and patented. The concept was based on the existing house facade at first comprehensively applied galvanized wire mesh and fasten with nails; the fine-meshed wire netting should be the actual stone maintenance. Then a 1.3 to 1.9 cm thick first rough layer of cementitious artificial stone composition was coated onto the covered with wire mesh facade surfaces. Was this dried, it served as a base for the second, equally thick layer applied and modeled while still wet, to resemble natural stone masonry.

Knight believed that his artificial stone cladding would be mainly interesting for owners of detached houses in Baltimore. Contrary to his assessment, the owner of terraced houses quickly became his main customers in the city. The main reason for this was that the typical Baltimore row houses were mostly built of poor quality, very porous bricks. They had to be regularly coated with thick layers of exterior paint, because otherwise the brick disintegrated by weathering. The owners promised from the promoted as maintenance-free form stone cladding, the cost of approximately amounted to the equivalent of three coats, a considerable saving of money and future expense. Another reason for the popularity of artificial stone facades was the widespread desire to increase his own reputation through a seemingly stone- built and therefore higher quality house.

Distribution and decline

Knight could be quite successful marketing method as a franchise with a total of 25 concessionaires throughout the United States with the exception of the Northeast, but gained in Baltimore and around Stone form a particularly significant role. At the beginning of the 1950s showed large parts of the city barely a facade, which was not covered in this way with artificial stone. Stone shape influenced the city on such a striking and ubiquitous way that Baltimore was also called shape stone capital of the United States. At this time, however, form Stone exceeded even its zenith: It turned out that the stone was sometimes less durable than the advertising claimed, and tended to crumble from the facades. In addition to that new facade cladding aluminum and vinyl plastics were popular and form Stone repressed.

Baltimore is also today still dominated to a large extent by the shape of Stone facades of the 1940s and 1950s, but they are increasingly disappearing from the cityscape. Since they are now perceived as ugly, tasteless and uncultivated, homeowners can often remove the artificial stone siding and expose the original brick facades again and repaired.

Documentary

In 1998, the American director Skizz Cyzyk filmed the documentary Little Castles: A Shape Stone Phenomenon ( German Title: A different house facade ), in which he detailed the history of the form of Stone facades and its extraordinary popularity in Baltimore. In addition to witnesses and experts is in the movie also a native of Baltimore director John Waters to speak and summarizes the character of the artificial stone siding with the words form Stone is along the polyester of brick.