Different Points of View

When I started this post a week ago, I had a whole thematic thing going in my head.  I've slept since then.  I also spent hours (literally) combing through old posts trying to locate the name of the brick design on the corner of this building since I could not remember it, and google searches was not turning it up.

This morning, I had the epiphany that it was on the Preservation in Mississippi blog, not mine.  It is called "pigeonhole corner detail" in the event you are (1) thinking of building a house with this design, or (2) have a house with this design and want to know what it is.

Cyril M. Harris in the Dictionary of Architecture and Construction  described the pigeonhole corner:

…an acute angle formed in a brick wall, using square-ended bricks that have not been shaped."

As you can read from the MissPres post, there are differing points of view (not the theme I had in mind originally, which was in a philosophical vein, but sometimes, once the moment of inspiration has passed, you just need to let it go and move on) about the utility of the pigeonhole corner.  Criticisms included:

• corners collect dirt, cobwebs, debris
• critters nest in the corners
• unsightly
• cheap and structurally unsound

While the first two clearly are possible, the second two are not necessarily so.  According to Rosell in MissPres Word of the Week: Pigeonhole Corner, there are "high end" buildings with pigeonhole corners, and property executed, the brickwork can add interesting detail to a building without compromising structural soundness.