The Colour of Mortar

Levi and I are in Quebec City, and despite the freezing -20°C weather, we’ve been forcing ourselves to walk every day and explore the city’s hills and frozen streets.

I’m clearly still very influenced by the masonry classes I just wrote finals for, because while walking, I keep taking extra time to observe the masonry buildings around us.

In the first photo, I attached a very pretty masonry assembly from one of the buildings I saw. The mortar was pink, and at first I really hoped that it was intentional rather than the result of weathering or chemical reactions. Later, I found a Quebec heritage article explaining that traditional lime-based finishing coats, made from lime and pigments, were often pink, beige, white, or yellow. So the pink tone may not have been accidental after all but part of a historical material palette (source: https://www.maisons-anciennes.qc.ca/news/mortiers-et-enduits---plus-qu-un-materiau-de-construction--une-technologie-qui-evolue).

The second picture is less impressive. The mortar had a lilac shade, though it might just have been dirt.