Get Rusticated with Architecture's Grooviest Technique

The New York Sun is once again a bright spot in our reading day with today’s ode to rustication penned by Carter B. Horsley. Rustication, which also happens to be the UnBeige Word of the Day, is an architectural effect created when masonry wall surfaces project beyond their mortar joint surfaces, or as Horsley more elegantly puts it, “a bold, rectilinear patterning…that usually is applied to the lower part of a building.” Favored by Renaissance architects looking to toughen up Florentine palace facades, rustication is rampant in New York City: on the Flatiron building, the University Club, and the Pierre Hotel, which is firmly committed to the pattern even now, in the midst of renovations.