All fall down

In 2000 The Great Court at the British Museum, which has the famous Reading Room at its centre, was enclosed in a scheme designed by the architect Norman Foster to produce the largest covered public square in Europe. It's a delightful space, but I find one aspect of the design slightly disturbing.

The walls of the surrounding courtyard are constructed out of large limestone blocks. As all children who've ever played with bricks know, the blocks have to be arranged in a pattern that locks, or bonds, them together or they run the risk of all falling down.

Overlapping blocks that hold each other in place

However, for some presumably aesthetic reason, the blocks on the circular reading room at the court's centre appear to be unbonded with vertical joins running from top to bottom.

On the one hand this shows that they're not really structural blocks at all, just markings inscribed on a concrete coating, on the other it makes me feel that the slightest earth tremor would bring the whole lot tumbling down.

Now I've no doubt that there was extensive discussion about this very point but I do prefer it when the pretend form matches the pretend function.