Jane Griswold Radocchia, Architect

why didn't this information get passed on? #3

2012-01-30T17:27:00.005-05:00

When did we stop using circle geometry (aka: regulating lines, the Golden Section) to design buildings?

It has been suggested the change came when architects took over the design process from builders.

Well, maybe. I just don’t think it’s that simple.

In Europe, during the Middle Ages, the understanding of how to use geometry was passed down through the guild apprenticeship system, specifically the masons’ guilds, the men who were the master builders of the medieval cathedrals, forts and castles.

The title ‘architect’ was used in the late 1500’s, but often as metaphor. The OED cites its use as a synonym for God, “The work some praise, And some the Architect”. 1667, Milton, Paradise Lost. Only gradually is the word specifically associated with the task of designing rather than building a structure.

Consider this chain of command:

John Mylne (d.1657) was the Master Mason to the Crown of Scotland.

His son, John Mylne (1611-1667) and then his nephew, Robert Mylne (1630-1710), succeeded him. All were members of the masons’ guild.

Sir William Bruce of Scotland (c.1630-1710) is considered the ‘architect’ who brought Palladian ideas to Scotland. He was Surveyor General of the King’s Works. Is this a title created for him because he had great ideas but did not draw? Robert Mylne drew for him and supervised the construction. And Mylne, a mason, would most likely have been using the geometry passed down through the guild. I keep wondering how Bruce conveyed this new classic vocabulary if he didn't 'draw'. Could he sketch? doodle? So many questions about all this!

James Smith (1647-1731), succeeded Bruce as Surveyor General. He was trained by Mylne. He in turn trained William Adam (1689-1748). Both were admitted to the local masonic guild. These men began to be referred to as ‘architects’: Colen Campbell (1676-1729) in his Vitruvius Britannicus calls Smith "the most experienced architect of that kingdom".

William Adam trained his sons, John Adam 1721-1792), Robert Adam (1728-1792), and James Adam (1732-1794) as masons. Robert and John Adam are the men after whom the Adam Style (often called Federal in New England) is named. Robert was truly an ‘architect’. He designed and drew, someone else executed.

They traveled abroad. Most of them read Latin. But at least through the Adam brothers the knowledge of design and construction was rooted in the masons' knowledge, in regulating lines.

I have drawn heavily upon Wikipedia for these men's histories. I hope in the near future to be able to read the sources sited and find others.

North Bennington Walking Tour, 50 - 54, 46

2012-01-27T16:26:00.014-05:00

The Dyer House is no longer here.

Cross the railroad tracks, and walk up to # 50, the William Hawks House and carriage barn, built in 1855. They are not on the 1856 map. Perhaps they were not finished when the data for the map was collected.

The house has an 'old-fashioned' center entrance, room on each side, shape. Over that is the Italianate 'new-fashioned' hip roof, double front door, porch, bay window, and trim!

The Hawks mill was on the south west corner of Water and West Streets.

Return to the railroad station and cross on Depot St. which wasn't here,

to Houghton Street.

There was a depot, a freight and engine house, but not these. This station was built in 1876. Here three railroads met: the Troy and Boston, the Western Vermont and the Bennington Branch, all with different owners and differing track specifications.

Houghton St was named after the family whose elaborate Queen Anne Victorian house was here. For an extra excursion turn left on Houghton Street, continue across the tracks to Lake Paran Park on the right. Lake Paran was created by the railroad bridge over Paran Creek in the 1840’s.

Between the houses the Robinson barn - #51 - is visible. In 1856 this land was fields, farm yard, and kitchen garden.

# 52 may be the M.B. Murch house. The D. Corkins house has been replaced by St. John's Catholic Church. picture to come

# 53 – Hicks, a simple c. 1820 house, updated over the years with new windows and wings.

# 54 –Warren Dutcher House. Greek Revival c. 1840, with added

porch. Mr. Dutcher’s house in Bennington had burned in 1849. He invented a improved temple for mechanized looms. By 1858 he had relocated his factory – which had been on Paran Creek - to Hopewell, MA.

#46a - Barn for Hawkes (Eddington) House picture to come

This side was the working side of the house: the location of the stable, dairy, kitchen garden, and barn yard. The front door was for company.

These are the main buildings which were in N. Bennington in 1856, with the exception of 11 houses, a school and an Academy (now gone), and 3 factories, all on Water Street. (Those buildings which remain will be added as a 'drive-by' tour.) Barns, shed, outhouses, and other secondary structures were not recorded. I found it fascinating to understand physically, by walking down the streets of the village, how it would have felt to live here, how small a village it was.

I welcome your comments and corrections. The internet makes improvements simple. Thank you for reading and, I hope, walking.

Folk Victorian, circa 1972

2012-01-27T11:03:00.009-05:00

A contractor bought this 2 family in-town house and asked for my help. Because of the deep lot we were able to return to its original single family status and add a 'barn' as the second living unit.

This massing was similar to other homes in the neighborhood. The back of the barn looks out over town owned wetlands.

The house was renovated on a strict budget.

The 2 units sold as condominiums immediately.

Some highlights:

The living room fireplace mantle had disappeared. The contractor

found a new one at a discount warehouse, Building 19: Victorian style interpreted by Thai craftsmen. We laughed, but it fit the budget and in place, painted, looked great.

The basement had about 6 ft. head room. We found out why when we dug the foundation for the barn addition - a high water table. That required the wing be set higher on the site. Then the roof lines didn't meet properly, necessitating some on-the-spot redesign.

The original 1872 house used only one profile for all the moldings. It ran sideways up the windows, upside down as an apron, right side up on the baseboard. The visual variety came from how the light stuck the curves in the different positions. So simple, so effective.

The windows in the faux barn door are over the kitchen sink. The current owners have continued the visual joke by landscaping a faux barn entrance ramp below the 'door'.

The project made a real impact on the neighborhood and received

a local Historic Prservation Award.

New garage in the same place

2012-01-26T20:58:00.005-05:00

This garage belongs to a dramatic c. 1915 Arts & Crafts home, glimpsed here directly behind the garage. Across the street is a wooded and shrubby bank sloping down to the river.
The topography required us to build in the same sandy location as the existing tiny, structurally unsound, stone garage. The garage needed to be, like the original, useful and incidental.

The original caretaker's cottage (just out of view on the left) overlooked the garage, so a low pitched hip roof was chosen as less intrusive than the original gable.

Structurally this was difficult, holding back the sand as we dug a bigger hole. We also ran into an uncharted sewer line running across the driveway from the caretaker's house. While we were applying for the building permit from the Town, the State's wetlands rules changed.

Please notice that I use 'we'. That includes the owner, the contractor, even the neighbor whose septic system was uncovered. The excavator, the foundation man and the engineer conferred about that sand. The new stone wall and steps, the depth of the roof overhang, the trim around the garage doors, the paint color are as important to the garage's success as those neat Arts & Crafts garage doors.

The whole property received a local Historic Preservation Award.

North Bennington Walking Tour, 43 - 49

2012-01-19T12:31:00.016-05:00

BLACK TOUR

Main Street was laid out in 1760 to go north to Shaftsbury. Houghton Street was cut in 1835, also to go to Shaftsbury, but avoiding the hill on the main road. The railroad was

here in 1856 but not Depot Street. The railroad continued across the dam at Lake Paran to Bennington. The bridge and dam which had washed out had quickly been replaced.

The tour begins at The Eddington House

# 44 - WF Hawkes House, now called The Eddington House. A porch once ran across the front of the house, probably not as early as 1856.

# 43 -SC Loomis House (picture of fan light)

The Park: the Post Office was here, as well as an apothecary shop, a store, and the home of H. Koon. They were destroyed in a fire in 1886 that burned all the way to the Cobblestone House. A cabinet shop sat in what is today the bank parking lot.

# 45 – Surdam House, c. 1835. The house shape and size is similar to those on Bank St. Its stone construction is unusual in the village. The entrance side panels and hood are taken pictures in the1830 design book of Asher Benjamin.

# 46 – Built c. 1780 for Fannie Hinsdill. It originally had a center chimney. This house has been continually updated - the triple windows, c. 1910, and the picture windows in the 1950’s for a barbershop.

#47 – The Cobblestone House, 1848, Gothic Revival, with its steep roof and gingerbread icing along the eaves was inspired by medieval stone carvings. It retains its early American story-and-a-half shape and scale. In 1856 one of the Colvins lived here. The cobblestone exterior was also popular in western NY. This house was built by Warren Dutcher who auctioned it off for $1 per chance.

#48 - GW Simmon House, c. 1850, is a classic Greek Revival - with a later porch and Italianate double door. It was constructed with timbers from a mill on Paran Creek which was being rebuilt.

#49 – Robinson is a mirror image of #50. This house has Italianate ‘improvements’: a double front door and a bracketed entry roof.

Both the Simmon and Robinson houses have barns, befitting a prosperous homeowner of the 1850’s.

North Bennington Walking Tour, 43- 2

2012-01-18T21:49:00.013-05:00

#44 – Sam C. Loomis House, Federal, c. 1830. This house is hidden by its siding – its graceful front entrance, corner pilasters, and fanlight in the gable still peek through. It is smaller, only 2 windows wide, less imposing than its neighbors down the street (#2, 25, 26).

#45 -Hawkes House, c. 1830, and updated many times. Breaks in the trim indicate a porch location, window changes, and various expansions. Mr.Loomis ( #43) and Mr. Hawkes owned the market in the square (#3).

#26 - Hiland Knapp House, c. 1825. The curving bands – guilloche – at the eaves and at the entrance, slender ionic columns, a subtle brick pattern, dressed marble lintels and sills are graceful and sophisticated. The style, Federal, was inspired by the Adams Brothers, popular English architects at the time.

#25 - B. Hammond House: Federal, c. 1825, is the reverse image of the Welling House (#2). In 1856, there was no roof over the front porch.

#2 –The Welling House end the Green Tour. Its Italianate side porch to the north once circled the house.

in support of Wikipedia

2012-01-17T16:42:00.007-05:00

Why should someone who writes about history care about uncensored access to information? Shouldn't I be more concerned about someone stealing my ideas without compensation or attribution?

In the 1950's, during the McCarthy hearings, I was in the 8th grade. Our world history teacher, Mr. Fernald, was charged with teaching us about the economic and political systems of the world, including the USSR. When he spoke of Karl Marx and Communism, he asked us not to tell our parents, as he was afraid he might lose his job.

I didn't understand but I heard the fear in his voice and I liked him so I didn't tell my parents.

But I went home to the ironing broad set up in the living room. My mother washed all the curtains in the house and then ironed them, needing to 'accomplish something' as she listened to those hearings on the radio. She understood what my teacher felt.

Later I remembered it all again as I listened to the reports of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate as I worked. I understood that censorship is not healthy for children or other living things.

I began writing about architecture as a 'popular-izer' - someone able to translate architecture into standard English, making 3 and 4 dimensional ideas more accessible.

Today I think about design and technology in ways that are not generally discussed in the architectural world. I am not affiliated with a major university or museum. I do not have a PhD, a successful book, or a lot of money. Without the platform offered by the internet I would be invisible.

At least here I have a chance to put forth some ideas. If someone wants to expand upon what I have written, I say, "Please! Go ahead! When you can, let me know what you did, what you found, what others thought."

I want to research whatever seems important, including the underlying reasons for something that others may have overlooked. I do not want anyone deciding what I can see and read and what I can't.

North Bennington Walking Tour, 37 - 42a

2012-01-17T14:26:00.020-05:00

Bank St. was laid out in 1851 to go to White Creek. It wasn’t Bank St. until the bank was built in 1865. The 3 Greek Revival houses (#37-39) are excellent examples of the style.

The Colvin family farmed the land on this road. They also owned mills.

#37 - Sidney Colvin House, 1855. This house was set back from the road to create a setting, much as was the Robinson House on Prospect Street. Popular authors at the time recommended withdrawing one’s

house from the road to reinforce the Jeffersonian ideal of each family being self-sufficient

.

#38 - Charles Colvin House – Wood could be planed by steam powered machinery in 1835. Wide smooth boards were easy to mill, and readily available. These columns and frieze boards are the result. This house sits close to the street, urban compared to #37.

#39 - built by E. Safford. These cottages (with a central unit and side wing) have corners that look like colum

ns. They were inspired by ‘pattern books’, books showing plans and drawings. Many houses like this were built in upstate New York.

#40 - Originally this was a single family house, built c.1820, with simple trim, no frills, and a center entrance. It is larger than the simple mill houses on West and Sage St. The porch is later.

#41 – G. Robertson House, The Greek Revival house once boasted a frieze and corner pilasters, now hidden by vinyl siding. The Italianate porch is later.

#42 – Elwell House, 1851, Italianate, is very similar in shape and detail to the PL Robinson House on Prospect Street. However, it is not set back but sits directly on the street. One looks up at it and the feeling quite different. Its shape is similar to #41, , but its trim is light and airy, not solid.

#43 - Once the barn for the Elwell House, this building was moved in 1917-18 and remodeled to become a Masonic Temple. Note the similar verge boards at the eaves. Barns have cupolas (the tower at the top) to vent the hay stored inside, because hay heats up and can easily catch fire.

Where the roads met was a square bordered by the post office, 2 stores, an apothecary, a cabinet shop and – where the gas station is today - The Paran Creek House, a 3 story hotel with a broad veranda.

Behind that was a carpenter shop.

SB Loomis owned the hotel. He lived next door and also owned, with WE Hawkes, one of the stores in Lincoln Square.

housekeeping: measuring and regulating lines

2012-01-17T13:23:00.005-05:00

I have just added 'regulating lines' and deleted 'research' from the labels on 'measuring'.

Why?

Or perhaps, "So what?"

Because I am trying to write a post on whether the use of circle geometry died when architects took over design from builders, as has been suggested. I don't think so, but as I put together an answer I am asking myself more questions. So my understanding needs to be more thorough. I need to follow up on those directions of inquiry, see where they go and what's there.

I am beginning to think the answer has to do with how master builders, masons, joiners, and architects transferred information to workers. Drawings on paper? A reference cut in a stone ? A diagram on sheathing? Hatch marks meant for assembly on posts and beams?

So my 'research' on measuring turns out to be generic to thinking about the history of regulating lines.

I don't know who is actively following this, but if you are, please read the posts on measuring.

Note: This is when I think being an architect as well as an historian makes the difference. I know a lot about architectural drawings, about what actually goes into providing good information to the people who will be constructing what's in my head. Without that experience I might not even know it could be historically important.

North Bennington Walking Tour, 31- 36

2012-01-12T19:51:00.018-05:00

#31 – H. Hall House’s shape is similar to, but more generous than the housing on Sage St. A wide frieze board has been added at the eaves.

This house and its neighbors were a small community around the Baptist Church which sat here at the intersection of West and Park Street.

Built between 1830 and 1850 they are the beginning of the new style, Greek Revival.

#32 – W.J.Toombs House. The gable of this Greek Revival house

faces the street. Its entrance faces down the hill, to the side in the center of the house.

33 – Known as “the Lodge” because it served as a guest house for the Parks and McCulloughs whose 1864 mansion is across the street. Now a school with many wings and alterations, the original house, built by Martin B. Scott, is in the middle.

# 34 – Baptist Parsonage, 1847, brick, Greek Revival. The door and window casing are similar to the Watson House on Prospect St. The pattern at the eaves creates a frieze in brick. The frieze boards in the neighboring houses show how much easier it was to do in wood. The left wing is later. The original house was quite small.

# 35 – D. O’Brien’s house in 1856, it was built c. 1830 by Nathaniel Hall, brother to Hiland Hall, whose house was down Park Street. This house had a serious fire. The left and rear wings are 20^th century. The shape of this house, gable end to the street, side wing with porch becomes the preferred shape in the village.

Take a walk through the Historic Park-McCullough House grounds. Visit the ‘Big House’ and see what Trenor and Laura Hall Park built in 1864 in their village with money from the California gold rush.

The Hall – Park - McCullough family was a generous contributor to the betterment of the village. Hiland Hall and John McCullough served as governors of Vermont.

The Hiland Hall farmhouse is beyond the Big House.

Church St was not here in 1856. This was Hall and Colvin farm land.

In 1856, as well as the district school (#18) and Asa Doty’s school (#27) there was an academy for older students on Water Street.

The North Bennington Graded School was built in with the help of Hiland Hall and Trenor Park.

# 36 - The Baptist Church, built in 1845, sat on the corner, looking over the town. When Trenor Park wished to build his mansion here, in 1864, he laid out Church Street from here to Bank Street and moved the existing building a block down, out of the way. It has still retained its view out over the village.

Luykas Van Alen House, 1737, Kinderhook, NY

2012-01-11T20:43:00.018-05:00

The newsletter of The Society for the Preservation of Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture arrived this week,Vol. 14, No. 10-12. Walter Richard Wheeler described the documentation before the Luykas Van Alen House in Kinderhook, NY, was restored.

Here is a partial view of the HABS drawing reproduced in the newsletter.

(1934, HABS, Adam Van Alen House, Kinderhook, NY, E. J. Potter, delineator. Please see the foot note for explanations and caveats.)

This morning I took out my compass to see what I could learn about the design of the house.

I used the HABS 1934 floor plan for my base drawing. As this house was built by people of Dutch descent who would have known Dutch framing systems from the Continent (NOT England) I was uncertain about what I would find. I looked first at the main house, the 2 rooms with fireplaces on the left. The floor plan fits within the circle.

Then I looked at the wing - the right side beyond the stair. It is thought to be a little later, perhaps beginning as a barn. Here the layout is more complex: (A) is the arc from the length of the wing. It intersects the continuing length of the house at the location of the partition. (B) is the arc of the width of the house and wing. Its length seems to determine the placement of a beam beside the stair. Its diagonal (C) may determine the location of the door and steps into the room on the end (the north room, on the right in the drawing). One would enter the room on the corner of its square, the room itself is the Golden Section.

Footnote: I also found the beams to be located at points determined by circle geometry. However:

The drawing I am using is very small, About 10 ft = 1 inch. As a architect I consider this to be 'schematic' - definitely too small for construction. The elevations in John Stevens' book are only about 1"=20', much too small to be able to identify a relationship between the plan geoemtry and the elevations. The next step is to print out the HABS drawings which are available on-line.

I am also thinking about how the circles were actually used. The builders might have drawn the first circle on the ground where they intended to build. Or maybe not.

HABS: Historic American Buildings Survey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Alen_House is an excellent introduction to the house. It includes a photograph which shows the main house and the wing.

The best book on Dutch 'Colonial' construction is Dutch Vernacular Architecture in North America, 1640-1830, John R. Stevens, HVVA, NY, 2005
.

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, # 26 -30

2012-01-08T17:36:00.010-05:00

The tour does not include Water Street because in season the greenery makes the buildings on the 1856 map and Paran Creek invisible. The other 6 months of the year there is visibility from the side lawn of the Library. The Water Street side walk is also located on the west side of the road, away from what one would hope to view.

Walking up hill, west from the McCullough Library, corner West and Main Streets, North Bennington, Vermont

GREEN TOUR

In 1856, the Boot and Shoe Factory sat on the right side of West St. with the Union Store (#3) to its north, a tin shop to the west. On the left was the Hawks & Co. mill.

# 27 – Doty Hall, which housed tailor shop and a shoe shop in 1856, was built by Asa Doty as a private school with a second floor auditorium. While the school is a box topped by a stylish pediment, its location and its lack of detail give it much less presence than the stores at Lincoln Park.

#28 - Built in 1827 by Asa Doty, this house matches the Hammond and Welling houses. Its fan light has the same row of balls. About 1850, it was ‘up-dated’ with Italianate details: the corbels under the roof, a bay window on the east side. The Park family lived here while their summer mansion was being built in 1864.

#29 – RW Bangs House, probably c.1830, as the entrance is centered on the front under the roof slope. The shape has not yet been turned so that the gable end faces the street.

#30 – mill housing with little detail other than simple Greek Revival eave returns.

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, #24- 26

2011-12-16T11:44:00.013-05:00

#24 - McCullough Library, 1921, replaced the N. Bennington Boot and Shoe Factory which burned down in 1884. Its classic columns and symmetry compliment the markets across the park, but the columns have Corinthian capitals with leaves instead of the plain Doric capitals on the stores. The brick work is like a tapestry, an outer skin, decorative, not structural. The round brick columns at Welling and Thatcher’s Store hold up the building. The corner pilasters on Loomis and Hawkes’ store cover real wood posts.

In 1856, the Union Store (#3) was here as well as some carriage sheds and a clothing store.

#25 - B. Hammond House: Federal, c. 1825, is the reverse image of the Welling House (#10). Its circular fan light has the same ball detailing as the Welling House. Both houses were originally unpainted brick, as the Knapp House (#9) still is. George Briggs was the builer.

#26 - Hiland Knapp House, Federal, c. 1825. This house sports curving bands – guilloche – at the eaves and at the entrance, slender ionic columns, a subtle brick pattern, dressed marble lintels and sills. It is graceful and sophisticated. Its style - center entrance, gables to the sides - was soon eclipsed by side entrance, gable to the street houses such as Welling (#2) and Hammond (#25). Water St was laid out in 1825 along Paran Creek.

End the tour at #2 – The Welling house, seen from Main Street - the twin of # 25, the Hammond House, across the way.

And #1 - The Thatcher and Welling Store, which has been Powers Market since c1900.

It is the oldest country store in Vermont. Note the pulley for a hoist under the eaves of the roof and the bricked-in loading door.

The 1856 map of N. Bennington, Vermont

2011-12-06T21:08:00.008-05:00

Here is the map of North Bennington in 1856.

The walking tour highlights the buildings shown here, ignores those built after the map was made.

The few exceptions are the William Hawks House that probably was built by 1856, but not when the map was first drawn, the McCullough Library and the VAE which are landmarks and replaced existing buildings, and the buildings on Nash Street.

This is a work in progress. The tour is posted here so that readers, (and I hope people who have walked the route) may comment and suggest changes.

A working version will be available at the McCullough Library with a page for each building - with lots of space for additions and comments. What else do we know about these houses, about their owners before and after this map? What have I missed?

A printable copy which will fold up onto a small booklet will also be available through the Fund for North Bennington. The logistics of the layout are time consuming...

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, #17- 23

2011-12-06T20:31:00.009-05:00

#17 – Mosher – here the simple form used for mill housing ( see #11,13, 15,) has turned 90* - gable to the street – to become Greek Revival in style, like its neighbor, #18.

# 18 - The brick school house. How does this building tell us it is a school?? The entrance is in the center, not to one side. It opens into a cloak room and then into one large room. Schools might also have 2 doors on the front, one for boys, one for girls. The second floor windows are decorative: they don’t service a living space.

# 19 - P.L. Robinson House. (Robinson and Parsons mill?) Like the Bruce and Draper houses this house has 3 windows across the front, the usual pattern between 1820 and 1890. The verge boards at the roof line are the beginning of Victorian ‘gingerbread’ – surface decoration. The Elwell House on Bank Street, # 42 has similar trim and a similar porch. This house was deliberately set back and landscaped to separate the house from the hustle of the thoroughfare and give it a sense of ‘retirement’. This is a quite different feeling from the Draper House across the street.

# 20 - Mrs. A. Watson, c. 1830 with a later porch. The corner columns and front door are Greek Revival. These details become much more pronounced in later houses.

#21 - The G. Watson House, c. 1830 with c. 1910 wing. The older, left wing of the house is similar in size, proportion and window layout to Mrs. Watson’s house. The picture window in the right wing, with the small rectangular window at the top, called a ‘cottage window’, was very popular in 1915. There are many in the village.

#22 - The Rufus Towsley House is an ample two story residence. The wide, stylish Greek Revival frieze is only on the side walls as it would have blocked the 2^nd floor windows on the front of the house.

This was the only house on Pleasant Street and had great presence when viewed from Main St, across Paran Creek. Today that view is hidden most of the year. In season Pleasant Street affords a view of the creek with its numerous falls, and the stone mill built by EM Welling.

Mr. Towsley’s carriage shop was next door. In 1866 he moved to Bank Street.

#23 - Dr. S F Ranney House. This house has been greatly altered since the 1852 flood. The window hoods on the west side show some of its original character. The flood destroyed the doctor’s office on the first floor.

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, #11-16

2011-11-28T20:45:00.010-05:00

Rather than wait until I have a finished presentation, I am posted without all the photographs and the maps. I will add them as I can.

#11 - c.1820's mill housing. Sage built this simple housing for his employees along Sage St. The only frill is the return on the eaves. The next mill owner, Vermont Mills, also built dwellings here for its employees. The housing was owned by the mill until 1957.

#12 -The factory now at the end of Sage St. is the third factory to be built here. It was built in 1920 after fire destroyed the E.Z.Waist Co. in 1913.

Note how the rich and poor lived side by side. The factory owner wanted to be able to see his property, to care for it and show it off.

Cross the bridge on North Street. This is a good place to see how the creek becomes a mill pond. The bridge was not here in 1856. For an extra excursion, turn left on Lake Paran Rd., the road along the creek. The road goes along the creek, past the new railroad bridge, where the dam burst in 1852, and come to the park at Lake Paran. Return and continue left up the hill to

#13 – Vermont Mills housing, c. 1825, probably for foremen as it is fancier than the mill housing on Sage Street.

Here the 2 family cottage has wings and an entablature – the trim and hood around the front doors.

Turn right on Mechanic Street.

Mechanic St. was not here. That’s why -

#14a – Mr. Draper’s barn sits in such an awkward location – this was his backyard: These houses weren’t here.

Turn left on to Prospect St. - in 1781 the route across Bingham Hill to Bennington.

#14 – The Draper House, c. 1850, is a Greek Revival mansion. When this was built much of the United States embraced the new Gothic and Italianate styles. But many dramatic Greek Revival houses are going up in this part of Vermont and upstate New York. J Draper, Jr. built a grand house with 2 story columns, lots of trim, side wings and an amazing delicate fan light.

# 15 – P E Ball House – Ball, the town blacksmith, built his shop at the bridge after the flood. The porch and front gable are later renovations.

#16 - Col. JH Walbridge House, Italianate – the shape is traditional: side entrance, 2 windows on the front. The low hipped roof and curly corbels at the eaves, the porch that extends around 3 sides, make it Italianate. The style was just beginning to be popular in town.

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, #2a

2011-11-21T22:48:00.007-05:00

The Wellings' barn

The Wellings, successful village merchants and mill owners, were also farmers, as were their neighbors. Their house and large barn in the center of the village shows the rural nature of N. Bennington in the 1850s. The barn was dismantled and moved here from Pittstown, NY, about 1827.

The roof is a fine example of a slate layer's skill. This particular slate pattern, mixing the colors available from the slate quarries in nearby Poultney, VT, is seen on many roofs in N. Bennington, (indicating that one roofing company laid most of the local roofs, probably in the 1880’s).

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, #4a,8-10

2011-11-21T22:25:00.011-05:00

#4a – Hawkes, Loomis & Co. store, rear

The back of the building is the service side - note loading doors on every floor and the hoist cover at the peak of the roof. The corner columns (pilasters) are well defined, with bases and capitals. There is no skimping even at the warehouse end of the store.

Walk up Nash Street, which wasn’t here. Nor were

#8 - the 1965 fire station,

#9 - the livery stable, and

#10 - Nash’s blacksmith shop.

All were part of a world to come in 1856.

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, #4-7

2011-11-20T21:05:00.009-05:00

#4 – Hawkes, Loomis & Co. Store: a Greek Temple in wood. Both Powers Market (#1) and this store have gables outlined as pediments; here are corner pilasters instead of columns. The front porch is a later addition which softens the strong shape of the building.

#5 -To the right of Hawkes and Loomis’ store, down the street, is Paran Creek.

Stop at the bridge to see why Joseph Haviland, and the mill owners who came after him, wanted the ‘privilege’ to dam the creek for water power. In 1856 one mill stood on the park site, another where the fire station is today. Both, owned by Bronson Harmon, manufactured carpenter squares.

#6- Red Mill, built by Bronson Harmon after the flood destroyed his first factory. The mill has had numerous additions and other uses since then.e to see why Joseph Haviland, and the mill owners who came after him, wanted the ‘privilege’ to dam the creek for water power. In 1856 one mill stood on the park site, another where the fire station is today. Both, owned by Bronson Harmon, manufactured carpenter squares.

Coming back toward the square:

# 7 – PE Ball’s blacksmith shop, c. 1855, replaced a blacksmith shop swept away by the flood. This building was bought for $3.00 in 1878, to become the town’s first fire station. The arches and fanciful shingle patterns were added when the shop was remodeled. The large doors came even later when motorized fire trucks replaced horse drawn apparatus. The second floor was used for meetings of the volunteer firemen. It is now a private residence.

2011 map for N. Bennington walking tour

2011-11-20T21:00:00.007-05:00

Here is the map for the actual walking tour, a route around the village paying attention to what was here in 1856.

It is broken into 3 loops for easy walking.

The red tour is the early center with its mills around Paran Creek, and Prospect Street.

The green tour is the west side, just 2 roads: West Street and what is now Bank Street, then the road to White Creek.

The black tour shows the village expanding toward the railroad and north to Shaftsbury.

Each tour includes an extra excursion or two.

Again, this is a work in progress, made possible by the flexibility of the internet. I know I will change it over time. I hope it will be improved with the help of you, the walker.

North Bennington, Vermont, Walking Tour, #1- 3

2011-11-20T19:48:00.010-05:00

RED TOUR

Starting at Lincoln Park

( I need to take new picture of the store. Posting the whole tour, 40+ buildings, to the blog is a work in progress. Obviously the maps need to be here too.)

#1. Thatcher and Welling Store, 1833, The market was the mill store for the Welling’s paper mill. Thatcher was Edward Welling’s brother-in-law. The market is a Greek temple in brick. The curved bricks for the round columns were specially made for building columns. The second floor extension under the portico was added later.

# 2 – EM Welling House, 1827, has 2 front doors. One faces Main Street. The other looked out over the Welling mill yard and store, to his factory on the site of Haviland's grist and saw mills. The house has been expanded over the years, each wing sympathetic to travelers coming into the square see the original house but with its own identity factory, on the site of Haviland’s grist and saw mills. This is the classic Georgian way to set a house, so it can be seen from a distance, as one approaches.

#3 – The Union Store originally sat where the McCullough Library is today. It was moved in 1920. It is a stripped down version of the Greek Revival style. The gable faces the street; the returns on the eaves suggest the pediments which are so clearly defined in the buildings on either side. Note that all 3 buildings, though different width and heights, have 3 windows - 3 bays - across the front.

North Bennington, Vermont Walking Tour

2011-11-20T19:42:00.004-05:00

The village is rich with 200 years of architecture, from simple vernacular homes and factories to those built by well known architects.

For this tour I have chosen to focus on one date, 1856, to show the village at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. I hope to add other tours highlighting later periods and styles.

The house names used on this tour are those which appear on the 1856 map.

The village is here because of Paran Creek. The creek drops 100 ft from Lake Paran to the Walloomsac River.

West Street came first. In 1765, it connected Joseph Haviland’s home

to his mill on the creek. Haviland held the ‘patent’ to dam the creek,

to use the water to power his mill, granted by the Rensselaer family who controlled the land around Albany, NY.

Next Main St. was cut north to Shaftsbury. In 1781, Prospect Street was laid out over Bingham Hill to Bennington; and in 1825, Water Street was added, going south along Paran Creek to the Walloomsac River.

By 1856 North Bennington was a village of about 80 homes and 8 factories, 6 of which were powered by that falling water.

4 years earlier the railroad bridge which dammed Lake Paran had collapsed. The subsequent flood tore through the center of the village, destroying mills and houses. The map shows how quickly the residents rebuilt.

In 1856, Bank Street went to the town of White Creek. Park, Pleasant and Houghton Streets were roads to farms. Every road was dirt.

Lincoln Park was a working delivery and storage yard. The stores here were built to serve the factories and the people who worked in them.

hiatis

2011-11-20T19:27:00.005-05:00

I haven't written since last January.

I have been tending to family responsibilities.

How much more acceptable it would be if I could claim writer's block. The feminist in me laughs and replies to Virginia Wolfe, "Yes, I do have a room of my own."

I know that taking care of life for the last 40 years has made me a better architect.

"why didn't this information get passed on?" #1

2011-01-30T21:23:00.007-05:00

I spent more than 35 years as a practicing architect renovating old houses north of Boston. I have worked on houses as old as 1680 and as new as 2000.

Because so much about existing construction is unknown until it is actually taken apart, I worked very closely with 'my' contractors - about 8 different firms - much as design-build teams work.

In the beginning I was lucky enough to work with experienced contractors who had grown up working for their fathers - so the knowledge we had access to was deep and broad. Later the crews pretty much knew each other and if there was a real problem we could ask everyone (and their fathers!) for their expertise.

In my experience neither they nor the men who did finish millwork had never been taught about any kind of regulating lines being used to determine proportion or design. They certainly have been interested in the ideas.

Circle geometry is beginning to be taught at forums of the Timber Framers Guild.

I met architects 40 years ago who knew about the Golden Section. I know only one today but have not been able to have in depth conversations about how he uses the proportions.

I would welcome information about who is using all the variations of regulating lines and where. An earlier post outlines what I know at the moment.

"why didn't this information get passed on?" #2

2011-01-30T20:59:00.009-05:00

The simple answer is The Industrial Revolution.

While I think that is true, the word ‘revolution’ assumes a quick change, not something that lasted over 150 years. So what happened?

Here is what I’ve managed to piece together:

In the colonies:

Before 1770, if a young man was not preparing the ministry, for college, he would be apprenticed to a craftsman to learn a trade, sometimes at as young as 11 years old. After as many as 7 years he would have skills and tools, a trade. If you remember Benjamin Franklin’s story, you know he disliked his apprenticeship and eventually ran away from Boston to Philadelphia to seek his fortune.

Especially after the American Revolution the system didn’t work very well. Many young men moved to new places, tried several trades and never finished apprenticeships. Housewrights and joiners couldn’t pass on their knowledge so easily. A man might need to teach himself the skills he lacked.

The pattern books of the period bear this out – their first plates teach basic geometry, knowledge a carpenter would have taught his apprentices as they worked. The books were very popular. One book - over 100 pages of geometry - was Peter Nicholson’s The Carpenter’s New Guide, published in England in 1792, and then in Philadelphia, PA. Published into the 1850's, it went through 16 editions.

The pattern books I have read (list supplied upon request) do not clearly spell out how to use geometric proportions and ratios to determine size and placement in design. I haven't yet figured out why.

An aside: Nicholson himself was self-taught. His biography on Wikipedia is fascinating.

more later...

Regulating Lines - 1830's cottage north of Boston

2010-08-30T20:39:00.023-04:00

----

A family with a small c. 1830 story-and-a-half house asked me for advice - how to expand their home in keeping with its character.

We talked about their needs, the house constraints, the land. I suggested that a variation of "big house, little house, back house, barn" might be work. (The old jump rope rhyme refers to the massing of early New England farms. There is a book of that name describing the phenomenon.)
Back on my drafting board - after I had drawn up a sketch for the family and their contractor which reflected our discussion - I played a bit with the form. Here's what came out of it:

nota bene: the floor plan provided to me was at 1/8" = 1'-0", very
small. It feels right, but I have not measured the house myself. I have no measured drawings of the elevations. I can discuss the date of the house some other time, if asked.

The first floor plan and a sketch of the house is here. The red line shows the outline of the original c. 1830 house plan.

The second drawing shows the original floor plan with - in red - the length of the side used as a radius for a circle.

The third drawing shows that a circle whose radius is the length of the
wall touches the 4 corners of the main house.The rectangle of the house
is determined by the circle. An arc using the same radius defines the
length of the wing, but not quite the width. The interior arcs of the
daisy wheel also define the small front entry. The 6 points of the 'daisy wheel' are shown, only 2 of the 6 'daisy petals' are drawn.

The house is simply built, perhaps by a farmer, not a joiner. Whoever he was, whatever education he had in construction, he knew circle geometry and used it to layout this house.

Regulating Lines - Asher Benjamin

2010-04-20T09:57:00.009-04:00

Asher Benjamin's first book, published in 1797, gives proportions on every plate except those of buildings: Plates 25, 26, 27; and Plate 23 which shows how to place newel posts on a stair.

The photograph is of Plate 18, a fireplace mantle. He notes: "B, Cornice, half size; C, Architrave, half size; A, Moulding round tablet full size for practice." All the numbers on the drawing refer to parts. B, the shelf of the mantle - drawn in the fireplace opening - states "17 parts" on the left side, and the divisions are ticked off on the right side. Across the mantle base are tick marks to scale the mantle itself, and then the note on the right: "8 parts". A is that little piece of moulding beside the mantle in the upper left corner.

The next photograph is of Plate 29. The top figure is how to size a arched ceiling over a room. The lower figures show roof frames - the bottom one is intended for a meeting house. The proportions to use are shown marked off and in notation: Figure D is 7 parts long and 2 parts high.
Here too the compass arc is shown. The 2 intertwined circles on the right of the top figure determine the arch for the ceiling. Note that the circles themselves are based on the size of the room. In the roof frames the arc of the circle - with its center at the center of the lower chord - determines the placement of the trusses.

So, was the use of the compass and geometric design so common that Asher Benjamin simply needs to allude to it? If so, why didn't that knowledge get passed on?

Regulating Lines #3 - Architecture

2010-04-17T17:06:00.004-04:00

In November, 2009, Laurie Smith gave a workshop and a lecture at The Timber Framers Guild Eastern Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Laurie Smith is a designer and a historic design researcher from Wales who is investigating the use of geometrical design in medieval Britain, documenting the use of circles and 'daisy wheel' geometry in the design of houses, tithe barns, and cathedrals. Ely Cathedral is pictured here.
His work is thorough, fascinating and thought provoking. Some of what he has written has been published in Timber Framing, the Journal of the Timber Framers Guild, www.tfguild.org.

My professors in architectural history had been in Europe after WWII. They told us about cathedrals in which the 'mark' (similar to a signature) of the stone mason could be seen on the parts of the columns. The marks were derived from the golden section.

Vitruvius, the Roman architect and engineer who wrote De Architectura, (On Architecture) in 10 books, writes about geometry and proportion, including the description of man as the basis for design that Leonardo da Vinci drew as the outstretched man in the circle. (I use a print by Cesare di Lorenzo Cesariano, c.1521, here.)

Peter Tompkins' Secrets of the Great Pyramid spends several chapters explaining how the pyramids are designed using the golden section. His book has much information about ancient Egyptian astronomy and
mathematics.
I didn't know about this book until a friend put his copy in the mail to me. Thanks, Bill. You'll get it back!

Arthur J. Lawton, and some others, researched the use of the square and its diagonal in Pennsylvania Dutch construction. It was published by the magazine, Pennsylvania Folklife, in the 1970's.

I am sure there are other architects and historians familiar with the golden section, its permutations, and the resulting regulating lines.

Victorian Bennington #3

2010-04-16T20:56:00.007-04:00

These are wonderful, exuberant details - a pleasure to come across - in my mother's words: "foolishness". Of course there are more I haven't photographed.

Victorian Bennington #2

2010-04-16T20:43:00.009-04:00

I was photographing before the leaves come out and obscure some great stuff for the summer:

Victorian Bennington, Vermont

2010-04-16T20:10:00.018-04:00

Just some foolishness

Regulating Lines - an Introduction

2010-04-12T14:11:00.007-04:00

The feed-back from my post on the regulating lines of Lorenzo has been considerable. So I am putting forward for your consideration what I know about geometry and pre-Industrial Revolution design. Mainly:

Regulating lines are not mystical or mythical. They are not magic.They are simply geometry applied to design and construction.

They began as an accurate way to measure and layout design when people had only simple tools: a point, a line, and something to mark with. The line could have been string, a rope, a chain. The marker could have been chalk, charcoal, a stylus on wax or wet clay.

Find some wet sand, a beach perhaps. Make a knot in a length of string. Tie a stick to the other end. Use your thumb on the knot to hold the end of the string on the sand. With your other hand pull the string taut and trace an arc in the sand with the stick. You have begun to use geometry to design.

Geometry can be read by 'illiterate' people, or rather: People can be literate in geometry without knowing numbers or letters. It is a separate language which, like music, does not need translation.

I will list the sources I know of in art and architecture. I hope there is more I just haven't found, yet.

regulating lines #2 - Dynamic Symmetry and the Golden Section

2010-03-31T16:56:00.020-04:00

'Dynamic symmetry' is the name Jay Hambridge (1867-1924) applied to his study of the use by the Greeks of mathematical and natural growth forms of nature in their design. His book explains his theories and gives 'Lessons' for the reader. The figures are taken from the his introduction and Lesson 2. (In figure 4, the ratio between the square and the rectangle derived from the radius of the diagonal of half the square is the golden section.)

The ratio of the Fibonacci Series was known in the Renaissance as the Golden Section or Ratio now called 'phi' (the Greek letter) or 6.18... It "... cannot be worked out arithmetically; but it can easily be obtained with nothing more than a compass and a straightedge." Peter Tompkins, Secrets of the Great Pyramid, p.190.

Artists tend to know about these ideas:

*About 10 years ago an art teacher casually mentioned the golden section, telling me it is a common organizing tool for artists. I have now heard this several times.

*On a tour of the Saint Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, NH, a guide mentioned that Maxwell Parrish, who often painted there, used the golden section. I can find no references to verify that memory. (Maybe I need to lay out regulating lines on his paintings!)

*Karyl M. Knee wrote a phd.thesis in 1966 on Byzantine icons which examines the use and history of dynamic symmetry from its development by the Egyptians to its use in Russian iconography. The thesis is on line.

*Luca Pacioli, author of the first book on accounting, was a mathematician. He taught Leonardo da Vinci. In 15o9, da Vinci illustrated Pacioli's book, De Divina Proportione, describing the 'golden ratio'. Leonardo da Vinci's painting, The Last Supper, uses the golden ratio as its organizing principle.

* French historian Charles Funck-Hellet analyzed the golden section in Renaissance paintings, unfortunately for me, in French. I have not found a translation.

Regulating lines #1 - Le Corbusier

2010-03-28T12:47:00.014-04:00

This is a post on my knowledge about 'regulating lines'.

Le Corbusier (1887- 1965) was one of the best known 20th C. modern architects.
As an architectural student I was so aware of him that I remember where I was when he died.
He wrote a book, The Modular, about visual relationships - a study on where to put what and why. Among other things he postulated a series of interlocking dimensions based on human scale, the Fibonacci Series, and the Golden Section.

In the book Corbu mentioned an associate, Jerzy Soltan, who was in my time, Dean of the Harvard School of Design. With amazing bravery for me, I, a student at MIT, called Professor Soltan to ask for a private reading class. He agreed. The first book he assigned was Dynamic Symmetry, by Jay Hambridge, an investigation of the Golden Section.

That year at MIT we had a series of visiting professors. I asked each of them privately if they used the Golden Section. Although they told me they did, they never mentioned it in lectures. It was considered a kind of magic.

I have Corbu's numbers posted beside my drafting board. I use them. I also use the Golden Section. When a client asks for a wing on an old house, I explore the existing pattern of the house - using the square, the diagonal, the permutations of the Golden Section - to help me read the regulating lines of the house so my design can be sympathetic to what is already there.
A note on the Fibonacci Series: any 2 numbers if added to each other will, within 6 calculations, become the same ratio:
1+2= 3, 2+3= 5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, 8+13 = 21, 13+21=34 21/34 =0.617
1234 + 789=2023, 789+2023=2812, 2023+2812=4835, 2812+4835=7647, 4835+7647= 12,482
7,647+12,482 = 20129 12,482/20,129 = 0.620

Try it yourself.

carpenter squares

2010-03-20T14:59:00.017-04:00

In 1815, Silas Hawes in S. Shaftsbury, VT, joined 2 legs of steel together to make a stable, true 90* angle carpenter square. Hawes patented his idea in 1819 and began manufacturing. (Iron squares did exist before this. Illustrations of them can be found in the pyramids and in medieval English carvings. There was one recorded in Plymouth in the 1620's, and another in New Haven, CT, before 1700.)

I became curious about these steel squares when I realized that there were several factories producing steel squares on Paran Creek, which runs from Shaftsbury, through N. Bennington to the Walloomsac River. Lots of factories because of lots of demand - one factory, swept away in a flood in 1852, was immediately rebuilt.

At the same time Asher Benjamin is publishing his pattern books.
And post and beam framing systems are evolving from scribe rule to square rule. This is a change from each tendon fitting only one mortise, to the parts being interchangeable. For example, a brace could fit between the post and beam (sill and stud in the illustration) at the front of a barn or at the back.

Do these facts have anything in common?

A joiner needs to know the angle he uses will be the same each time, dependable, before he can make the same part to be used many places. He needs to own a carpenter square even if it is expensive, and it was - at least a week's pay.

Does the manufacturer of many, many carpenter squares in Vermont a play a role in the evolution away from design using 'regulating lines'?

I don't know. I keep thinking about it.

The Eagle Square sign comes from The Shires of Bennington, published by the Bennington Museum in 1975. The illustrations were drawn by Edwin Tunis for his book, Colonial Craftsmen, the World Publishing Company, 1965.

glass for Show and Tell

2010-03-11T14:02:00.022-05:00

These items were part of the 'Show and Tell' we assembled for the forum on windows at the Dorset Historical Society in February. Choosing the pieces made me look more carefully.

The first is the piece left over from blowing glass. Today we call it a bulls-eye. It can sometimes be seen in the transoms over front doors in old houses. In the center is the closed-in hole where the molten glass was attached to the pontil - the tube the glass maker blows through. The swirls were caused by twirling the soft glass to thin it out to a plate about 5 ft. across which could then be cut into window panes. This was how glass was made before 1800. This center part was basically waste that someone found a use for.

The second is a reproduction Sandwich glass tumbler c. 1830, made with a 3 piece mold. I tried to photograph it so the light would shine at one of the seams. The use of a bucket to pour the molten glass into a mold instead of blowing up the glass glob on the end of a tube was a major change. Flat glass techniques changed too so window panes could be bigger.

The later goblet - 1880's or so - has a 3 piece base holding a seamless bowl. Wow! Compare the technology involved to mass produce this - buckets that were filled, moved and tipped, molds that closed and opened, machinery that brought the two parts together while they were still mailable - to the simple tool used to blow the bull's eye, the way of making glass for that had been used for centuries.

I also had a piece of window glass, c. 1900, with some waves in it. Extruding glass with a smooth surface was not easily done until around 1940.

Finally, I brought a modern art glass tankard because it showed the molten qualities of glass so well.
And here I was surprised at my response. This is the mug I use at home. Now I saw the air bumbles that mean the glass wasn't as carefully blown as early window glass was. It had the pontil mark - the place where the molten glass was attached to the blowing tube, and I liked seeing how the mug was made. But the piece was heavy, not light and airy. The glass was thick, not clear and delicate. The light shone through the others 'better'. The handle was just a snake, a blob of glass, crude.

I know the glass blower probably chose to make it like this - the nature of molten glass right there to see. But right now, partly because I understand the skills required to create them, I much prefer the other pieces.

walking on foundations when you're 3 yrs old

2010-02-24T09:35:00.005-05:00

Yes, I did.

When I was little my father regularly took my older sister and me off to look at houses under construction down the street. We had a new little sister at home and my mother needed a break.

I remember very little of this. Mostly I feel it when I'm delighted to be on a job site, amazed at the apparent size of the foundation (I know, I drew the drawings!), walking through the stud walls, checking out the 2nd floor view.
When the work involves an old house, I love discovering the bones of the house, how it was made and repaired, the truth under the siding, plaster, wall paper.

My father loves to hear and talk about my work. He likes to advise on and make jokes about appropriate period detailing. We've had good conversations about this blog, especially about the reasons Asher Benjamin uses proportions, and what might be the impact of steel squares on construction techniques.

Today my father, who is 100 years and 8 months old, is in Hospice care. Of course my 3 sisters and I are there, daily.

So this post is to explain why I've left ideas hanging. I tell my clients that work gets better over time, not to rush a job. Time to take my own advice.

regulating lines - in this case, circles

2010-02-11T08:16:00.009-05:00

Interesting - the place to buy a compass these days is in a quilting shop.
I wanted a good one, not the flimsy kind I had in elementary school. I wanted to see and touch it, so buying it on-line was not an option. I am still looking for a bigger one.

So, now I am playing! This morning I added circles to the sketch of Lorenzo.

The results are interesting. The radius for the arc of the fan light over the door has its center in the center of the door. The circle encloses the entry as it did for the 1795 entrance I just rebuilt.
The same circle fits the curve over the windows that unites the pilasters. The ellipse is the same curve as the fanlight coming back upon itself.

I know I like this. It is so simple, so straightforward: no wonder the house feels so right! The elements reinforce the important places. The parts speaks to each other, they're related.

It's also how architects and contractors on the job actually work. Imagine the mason thinking about the arch he needs to build over the door. He makes a wood frame to set in the opening so he can lay up the bricks from one side to the other. (Once the bricks are mortared in place the frame is removed.) Then he needs to span the spaces above, which happen to be the same width. So, use the same frame - obvious!

I also know I am working with a drawing based on a photograph and the scale is about 1 inch= 10 feet. Lots of margin for error. Still, it does please me.

regulating lines for Lorenzo

2010-02-10T15:09:00.017-05:00

The back cover of the brochure for Lorenzo, shows this picture accompanied by a good discussion of Vitruvius and his principles.

Unfortunately no one signed the article. I would like to discuss the ideas, especially 'regulating lines', with the author, but I haven't yet found a way. So I am posting this here.

I don't think the star shows the regulating lines used to design the house. The star is not regular in shape. Shutters like the ones on the house in the photograph were not in use until about 20 years after the house was built, so those points are not important elements of the design. The pediment was also added later.

My sketch shows the basic elements of the original house: the shape of the facade, the pilasters which sit on brick pedestals that are part of the foundation, the arches which join the pilasters, the door with its sidelights and fan. The windows sit quietly between the columns.

Here are the regulating lines - superimposed in red - that I think were probably used to determine the proportion, rhythm, and details of the house. These lines were easily drawn with a compass ( or dividers), one of the tools we know house wrights owned in the early 1800's. The center block of the house is a square. The width of the wings on each side is determined by the diagonal of the square used as a radius. The three bays in the center box are also the same width as the wings, and are delineated by the pilasters. The importance of the pilasters is emphasized by the pedestals in the foundation wall, the arches which join them, and the placement of the posts topped by urns in the roof balustrade. Curves, circles, ellipses draw the eye: here to the 5 bays, the door.

The height of the entrance is determined by the center of the square. When the pediment was added, its height was determined by extending the arc of the diagonal. Its ellipse is the same curve as the fan light. Pretty simple: each piece is determined by the whole. The curves reinforce the concept.

I played with the arch over the windows. Hmmm. It was a structurally sound way to finish the brick pilasters and create a frieze. It emphasizes the bays and formal composition. But the curve? The photograph is too small to figure out where the radius of that arc originates.

Old Doors at the Dorset, VT, Historical Society

2010-02-09T11:19:00.011-05:00

Last Saturday I took part in a forum on old doors at the Dorset, VT, Historical Society. The Society asked Miles Bowen to speak, and he asked me to come along.
It was fun, and not what I expected.
Miles, by trade a painter, knows a lot about old paint and wallpaper, including the faux painting of woodwork and doors in the early 19th century.
My contribution was the evolution of door construction and technology, and therefore, appearance. We had an 18th c. door to go with 2 posters depicting doors from 1790 to 1925.

Miles also brought hinges, latches,locks, planes, and door sections to pass around. Of course, seeing and touching something while talking about it is always the best way for me to learn. So I loved it!

We got caught up discussing how doors were/are assembled with no nails; old growth lumber; how hinges were/are made, including changes in metallurgy; and how/why latches gave way to door knobs and locks.

Although the posters were ready and waiting, we hardly referred to them. But what a good time we had, and how much knowledge I came away with!

The posters, locks, latches and door will be on display at the Dorset Historical Society for a while.

On Feb 27th we will talk about old windows and glass.

first picture of new entrance

2010-01-20T09:33:00.011-05:00

The contractor called: the old door and its pediment were down, the new entrance was going up.
Of course, I showed up!

The original sheathing was exposed. But, almost no ghosting - the tell-tale signs of where the first entrance had been. Two boards showed evidence of a hand rail. A beam had been cut away a bit. Neither was enough to determine the original dimensions or profiles (the shape of the mouldings used). The contractor, joiner, and I all really wished there was more to look at, learn from.

The new door, sidelights and columns were in place. The men lifted the fanlight and its surround and set it above the door for me to see. The winter sunlight bouncing off the snow was brilliant.

Not bad.
But hard to see: so white in the winter sunshine, jarring between the pink house and the blue door. As I expected, it looked too new: not enough layers of paint. The mouldings seemed fine: the shadows in the right places. The columns attenuated as they should, the fan shape right, but was it too flat? The 2009 door and sidelight seemed out of place: clearly modern. I was so involved I couldn't see it!

For me, this is a common reaction. I won't go back now for a while. I'll turn down the road as if by accident, and come across the house unexpectedly - and see then how it feels.

the fan light for the new 1795 entrance

2010-01-18T18:20:00.013-05:00

We had originally assumed the fanlight would be a Fypon composite. Fypon reproductions are based on real pieces, so we knew it would look OK. The only disconnect would be that the piece they copied would be generic, not specific to our entrance.

However, the Fypon fan was really bigger than what had been there originally. It made the entrance too tall. Listening to my frustration, Jack suggested he build a smaller fan from scratch - same cost to the owners. Excellent!

When the photograph of the entrance was blown up the shape of the fanlight could be seen as an arc with flat ends. Jack said this detail made it easier to assemble neatly to the sill above the door. Good.

So, back I went to the dimensions Jack needed to actually build this. He needed an arc with a radius for the fan... As I drew it, choosing a random semi-circle from my circle template, I stopped in surprise:
The circle which fit the arc of the fanlight, using the center of the door as its center, encompassed the whole entrance.
The squares, the overlapping Golden Section rectangles were clean. The circle centered on the entrance is not quite as clear. I love the way it covers the entrance to the house, protecting it. But it's not crisp. Do I have it right?

new 1795 entrance

2010-01-18T11:41:00.011-05:00

One of the ways I come to understand a building is to measure it and then draw it on paper. Using a tape measure, a clipboard and a pen to record the space inside and out is, for me, a way to spend time sensing the character of a place. Putting those dimensions on paper lets me revisit and more clearly know what I saw and felt.

So, I measured the front of the 1795 house, and put it on paper. Then I looked at what was there using the proportions of the Golden Section - mostly the square and the rectangle derived from its diagonal.
And there was the pattern - each side of the house was a square. The windows on each side were also symmetrically placed on each side of the center of the square. That square is the determining shape and dimension for this house. You can see the squares marked on the first drawing.

In the second drawing you can see the arcs derived from the diagonal of the square. They determine the size of the center bay. (Yes, they don't meet exactly. However, considering that they are only 6" or so off over a building 38 feet long, that's pretty close.)

I was delighted. I knew then how wide the entrance had been, and not just because I'm an experienced architect with an 'educated eye'.

Dividers aka a Compass

2010-01-12T18:35:00.019-05:00

This post is undergoing revision to make it clearer - my editor stopped by and gave advice, but I have not yet acted on her suggestions.

I ignored them, much as I ignored those pages of geometry in the pattern books.

But if you use proportions to determine how big something should be, dividers - or a compass - are how you transfer a dimension from one place to another. Dividing your window into 6 parts to find the width of your casing? Use the divider to transfer that dimension from the window to your piece of wood.

Today we would discuss it this way: "6 inches +?" "6 1/4 inches?" "How about only 6 3/8 inches?" Tricky to figure out, right? The divider is easier.

A compass serve a similar function as a ruler or a measuring tape, but it always refer back to a real thing. Intellectually, inches and feet are abstract numbers, with no relationship to any other thing at all. If you ask, "Why use a 5-1/2 inch casing for that window rather than one that's 6-1/2 inches?", an answer might have to do with cost or personal preference. The answer, "Is the 5-1/2 inch casing a better proportion for the window?" doesn't come automatically. When you get to that question using dividers you have already included the window, that's where you began.

I find I am in uncharted territory. At first I thought I was talking about 'calipers'. Then I found the tool I was thinking about is called 'dividers' or 'a compass' .

So far I haven't found very much written that confirms what I am seeing. I do know that proportions and relationships in medieval construction were often based on the circle and how it can be divided and combined. 17th and 18th century woodworking tool box lists include dividers and compasses. However, the drawing comes from Eric Sloan's Museum of Early American Tools , and he places it among the wheelwright's tools, not with the joiners'.

New 1795 entrance

2010-01-02T19:05:00.010-05:00

Next chapter:

The client wants to use a modern door and sidelights: energy efficient, less expensive, tax credits.
That means that part of the entrance size is known: 60 inches wide, 80 inches high. The proportions and moulding of the door and the sidelights are also fixed.

The existing door is post-WWII, Mid-Century - and I read it immediately as such. I am not sure, even if I copy on old door exactly, that I can design a door that doesn't read 'Early-21st Century'.
The subtlety of a period has to do with tools, materials, joinery, as well as proportion, parts, and details. Weathering, layers of paint, dings (ie: being used for 200 years), matter too.

Still, I want to try, you know: such a fine challenge!

how 'deep' a shadow?

2009-12-26T12:33:00.014-05:00

This week I went to see the pilasters Jack Cadwell is building for the 1795 re-created entrance.

Of course, they look fine: shiny and new, true copies of our shop drawings.

We like them. We know they will look fine. The details that will make us wince may be glaring to us, but invisible to others. In fact, one of us will probably be aware of how something could have been done better that the other of us doesn't notice.

I will be looking especially at the shadows: are they strong enough? too deep? And at proportions: We aren't making an exact copy: we have nothing that accurate to go by. But did we catch the sense? If not, what exactly did we miss? Did the pattern and proportion put the emphasis in the right places? Does the entrance work as a whole? Does it all 'integrate seamlessly'? (How about those fancy words?!)

This something I can't gauge now because the grain of the wood of the columns is so prominent and I am seeing the parts from 20 ft away, not 200, under interior lighting. The subtlety of proportion and pattern will not be visible until they are painted, assembled with the fan and its surround, and set in place, framing the door - at which point any mistakes we made will be too late to fix...

a reason why those old houses look 'right'

2009-12-17T20:25:00.014-05:00

'The Country Builder's Assistant', 1797, is Benjamin's first book. It was written before the factories in Shaftsbury and North Bennington, Vermont, began to mass produce metal squares.

I am thinking about why those squares were so successful (thus my research on measuring) and how they changed how we build. (Did true squares cause square rule framing techniques to develop out of the centuries old scribe rule tradition?)

So as I read this early pattern book, I was thinking about what was normal - what was the expected training of the carpenters who used the book?

Here's a paragraph which accompanies the first plate:
Note: 'Architraves' are now 'casings', the trim that goes around windows and doors, Friezes and Cornices are added above.

"To proportion Architraves to Doors, Windows, &c. divide the width of your Door or Window, into seven or eight parts and give one to the width of the Architrave: Divide that into the same number of parts, as are contained in the Architrave you make use of, if a Frieze or Cornice to the Door, give the Frieze equal to the width of the Architrave; or it may be one fourth or one third wider, the Cornice four fifths or five sixths of the Architrave."

Hmm, no inches and feet, just proportion: the size of the second part determined by the size of the first. Benjamin spells out what he thinks the relationships should be. No dimensions - just 'parts', parts of a whole.

So while I think I'm researching measuring and metal square, I realize I am understanding the reason for something else:
These buildings still feel right because their pieces weren't just added on as today we might 'stick' a windows here or there. Nor was the size of the window decided because someone 'liked' it and thought it 'felt right'. They, actually all the parts, were sized and proportioned to the whole. They belong. And that sense of wholeness resonates with us still.

'Strong' mouldings and falling water

2009-12-14T13:27:00.008-05:00

This is from Asher Benjamin's, The American Builder's Companion. He is the only writer I know of who discusses why to use one moulding instead of another. I have added some comments.

" The ovolo and ogee, being strong in their extremities are fit for supports; the cimarecta and cavetto, though improper for that purpose, as they are weak in the extreme parts, and terminate in a point, are well contrived for coverings to shelter other members;" I love being asked to see if a moulding seems to convey a feeling of strength or shelter. It's only a shape - a bit of trim casting a shadow, if there's enough light. "... the tendency of their outline being very opposite to the direction of falling water, which, for that reason, cannot glide along their surface, but must necessarily drop." This last piece of his sentence is one reason I think Benjamin's books were so successful. Not only was he explaining to the carpenter how to think about how a specific moulding would communicate an idea, a sense of a building's character, he was reminding the reader of the basic problem of construction: keeping water away.

Asher Benjamin doesn't forget the important stuff: Successful buildings need to do everything at once: delighting the eye while also keeping us dry and comfortable.

Note: I am not learning very quickly how to transfer illustrations. Nor have I figured out how to compose what each post looks like. I would like to decorate this one with some ovolo, ogee, cimarecta, and cavetto profiles, drawn by Benjamin, himself. But it may take a while. There may be examples on the web - or in his books, of course!

An early Christmas present

2009-12-07T16:31:00.007-05:00

Yesterday I received a telephone call from Abbot Lowell Cummings. I had written to ask his advice. I thought I might receive a note about when he would be available for a brief meeting. Instead there he was, on the phone!

For you who don't know, Professor (Emeritus, at Yale) Cummings was at SPNEA (now called Historic New England) for many years. He is well known for his basic research on post and beam houses (First Period) in Massachusetts, pre-1715. He also has encouraged many students and researchers over the years. Often when I find some good writing on Asher Benjamin I find a note from the author that refers back to Abbot Cummings.

We discussed books. He suggested some I didn't know, and will now read. But I've only missed a few. We discussed picky points about Asher Benjamin: who trained him? Who helped him go from finish carpenter at the Hathaway House in Suffield, CT, to his first book, "The Country Builder's Assistant"? What about all that geometry and concern about structure in his books, the parts that most historians ignore?

What a delight - to share perceptions with someone I admire! And to be on the receiving end of some of that support!

primary documents for the new, c.1795, entrance

2009-12-03T11:34:00.021-05:00

more teaching myself how to load pictures, a long slow process.

The owners had an old picture of the farm, when
the barn was still there, the driveway dirt.
The entrance is simpler than the other local examples
-not as tall and imposing. It has an elliptical fan, and columns, a roof. But the columns stop at the fan, and there is no broad architrave (the piece above the fan) below the entrance's roof.

When I blew up the picture, it was clear the fan's curve ends with straight sides, maybe 3" high. The 'joiner' - the traditional name the millwork guy chooses to use for what he does -tells me this detail makes for an easier joint: square instead of at an angle.

The other entrances in town of approximately the same date are both too grand to copy. The entrance we needed to recreate, as you can see in the photo, was lovely but less imposing.

So, what size was it? And what shape was the fan?

Show all

a new c. 1795 entrance

2009-12-02T13:55:00.014-05:00

This is an experiment - me teaching myself how to load a few pictures -

The owners of this farm house c. 1795, asked me to help design a new entrance. The one in the picture dates to the late 1940's, and is in poor repair.

I had already added a garage, screened their back porch, and repaired their family room , a shed which was poorly attached to the house about the same time as the entrance was modified.

This was a new problem. We had an old vague photograph of the house taken from a distance showing the original entrance. We knew of two other houses in town from the same period but their entrances were grander than what our photograph showed. So what should the entrance be? Exactly how big ? What mouldings?

Luckily, I was working with a fine contractor and a millwork carpenter. We knew each other's work and respected each other's opinions.

The quirk and bead, and why they matter

2009-11-27T21:46:00.000-05:00

When I began to teach myself about mouldings, I didn't even know the shapes had names. One of the first pieces of moulding I learned about is the piece that goes between the masonry of a fireplace and the wood mantle, called a 'bead'.

In the upper right drawing, the bead is the raised hump in the moulding. When used next to a fireplace in this way, the wood on the left side of the bead (see the drawing on the upper left) would be cut off at the far edge of the quirk (the narrow groove carved into the moulding), leaving the moulding to end with the bead. The bead can then be scribed on the back so it fits the irregularities of the brick or stone and sits cleanly against the wood. It is a magical piece because its quirk, maybe as small as 1/16 inch, makes a shadow so that you cannot 'read' the inevitable uneven plane between the masonry and the wood. After I learned about beads and quirks, I saw them everywhere, being used to make joints visually neat and graceful.

The tongue and groove wood paneling system, used extensively in Victorian times, was an excellent surface covering for places that might be damp: bathroom walls, porch ceilings; or banged into: halls, kitchens, school rooms. And in order to make the joint of the pieces less visible, a bead was cut on one edge, and then a bead strip, or two, run down the middle of the panel. When the boards were fitted together, the strips (actually, their shadows) were what caught the eye, not the - possibly uneven - joints. When I realized the trick of the quirk and bead, I was in awe of those who figured it out - what a simple and neat solution!

I discovered that 'quirks' and 'beads' changed size over the years. The depth and width of the channel and the shape of the curve can date a bead moulding and whatever it attaches to. Arts and Crafts quirks and beads are wider and deeper than their Victorian antecedents. Victorian ones are bolder than those cut before the Industrial Revolution. Next time you are in a big box home improvement store, look at the beadboard paneling offered for sale. The quirk is so shallow that a shadow hardly exists. (I can't resist adding: a shadow of its former self.)

Asher Benjamin wrote eloquently about shadow and mouldings, but I skimmed over those plates and discussion with little comprehension until I understood about beads.

Notice to the gentle reader....

2009-11-27T21:03:00.002-05:00

Lots of good things have come together for my editor - work, art, and family. This blog can not command her attention the way it used to. When I write that I sound like my father (which is fine, and makes me smile), but I have depended on her to add the illustrations, tweek my language, design the post.

Now I will see if I can write without depending on illustrations, and reminders that not everyone knows what I'm talking about already.

(editor's note - I just edited this....)

Why an early 19th C. architect matters

2009-11-27T20:29:00.008-05:00

I've already quoted Asher Benjamin on the difference between the shadow cast by a curve and that cast by an ellipse. He also spent several pages talking about how to combine different sizes and profiles (what a moulding looks like from the side). Here's a brief excerpt: " ...whenever the profile is considerable, or much complicated, ...(it should) be accompanied with one, or more, other principle members; in form and dimensions, calculated to attract the eye; create momentary pauses; and assist in the perception of the beholder." He continues with very specific examples. He is very wordy!

Moldings cover joints, allow buildings to move in the weather without leaking, are a way of fitting pieces together neatly. They give proportion, scale and pattern to spaces and shapes, and by emphasizing a part of the structure, direct our attention.

As far as I can remember, no one ever mentioned those ideas in school. Today I am surprised, but then I didn't know what I was missing. I did not expect to be an architect who took care of old buildings. 'Molding' was not even a word in the lexicon. In the 1960s, we were expected to express the structure of the building by showing it - I don't remember anyone in architecture school, or in my undergraduate architectural history classes discussing how to create ourselves what we saw (except by copying). We loved wonderful buildings, but we did not learn to use pattern , proportion, massing, rhythm, symmetry or balance. Those ideas were not in our design tool box.

an update on the possible Rumford fireplace at Lorenzo

2009-10-27T19:24:00.010-04:00

Lorenzo was open and quiet when I stopped by in September. That was good. I wanted to look again at the kitchen fireplace and see if it really did have Rumford boilers. The tour guides were gracious, welcoming, and as curious as I was. One had given me the tour last year. It was fun to continue our conversation as we investigated.

The Lorenzo kitchen fireplace has brick work to the right of the firebox itself with holes for pots to sit in, and openings below where coals could be set under the pots. The flue above the pots belongs to the beehive oven. There is none behind the boilers as Rumford suggests. The system is built very close to the floor, not at 'counter height' as shown in the drawings in Asher Benjamin's pattern book.

The fireplace itself now serves as the alcove for a cook stove. It's been bricked in and is covered up.

Of course, this just leads to more questions: Did John Lincklaen know of Rumford's writings? If not, why are the boilers there? What instructions did he give to his masons? How well did the system work? Did other homeowners around Lorenzo copy this fireplace?

I find I am as interested in the spread of knowledge as in the use of new technology.

Geometry, Taught in 6 Plates

2009-07-14T18:17:00.024-04:00

For years I passed over the plates at the front Asher Benjamin's books. At the time, I only wanted to see his buildings, and had no idea why he included plates on geometry and moulding profiles.

Now, through my continuing study of early 19th c. building methods and tools, I understand what Benjamin was doing. The first 5 plates in The American Builder's Companion are instructions on basic geometry because most of his readers were "untaught." They had apprenticed to carpenters or cabinet makers, and had learned to use tools and finish houses in the traditional, hands-on way. So Benjamin provided their geometry course.

He wrote:

A point is that which has position, but no magnitude nor dimension; neither length, breadth, nor thickness.

And by Plate VI , Figure 3, he is describing "How to find the raking mouldings for a pediment" - a semester of academic learning in 6 pages!

It's not just Asher Benjamin who cares about teaching geometry. Peter Nicholson's The Carpenter's New Guide, which ran 13 editions in Britain and the States from 1792 to 1857, spends 126 pages describing what he calls Practical Geometry. He begins with "1. A Point has position but not magnitude." (He's less flowery than Benjamin).

Neither of these pattern-book authors wanted their ideas to only be copied - they wanted their readers to possess the intellectual tools to adapt these designs to their own situations.

Interlaced, Paired Ribbons: Guiloche

2009-04-27T18:15:00.030-04:00

This is the door of the Hiland Knapp House in N. Bennington, VT.

The drawing below of guiloche (paired ribbons flowing in interlaced curves around a series of voids, usually circular) is half of Plate LII from The Architect, or Practical House Carpenter, 1830, by Asher Benjamin.

This close-up - of the frieze below the transom - shows almost the same guiloche on the door as is in the middle drawing:

But the pattern on the door is not an exact copy, and for a good reason. A 'running' pattern (like the one in the drawing) does not have a beginning or an end. But a front door is the visual focus of a house; it's not on its way to someplace because it is the place.

But, adding a curvy piece above the door emphasizes the whole entrance nicely while complimenting the Ionic columns. So what's a builder to do? A simple answer might be to put one circle of the guiloche smack-dab in the center above the door. But it's still a 'running braid': visually it doesn't stand still, it 'runs'.

The builder of this house came up with an admirable solution: the pattern starts from both sides, so that the ribbons meet in the middle, in an open circle. Now your eye traces the pattern to the circle centered above the door - and stops. Voila!

(The design makes me smile.)

Copying and Plagarism

2009-04-14T21:58:00.008-04:00

Over the past few months, I've been reading other people's writing and research on Asher Benjamin. One such scholar, architectural historian Abbot Lowell Cummings, has reviewed all the earlier pattern books (mainly English) that Benjamin copied. Yes, just copied - plate after plate. It turns out that Benjamin made direct copies from what can be found in earlier pattern books, most of them published in England. And at the time, no one seems to have said, "Hey! This is plagiarism!"

I find this interesting in light of conversations I've had about my own work and ownership of intellectual property. When I, an architect who works on old houses, design a new wing, I pay a huge amount of attention to how the existing house was designed. I am mining the existing house for visual knowledge that will help my wing compliment what's there. Sometimes I just plain copy.

But who owns the design that I copied? The original building may not have had an architect, so could it be the property of the carpenter, or the owner? Does it belong to me, because I adapted it? And should anyone even own it at all?

I'm pretty sure Asher Benjamin wasn't deliberately stealing the intellectual property of his predecessors - I doubt people even thought in those terms 200 years ago. I do think he really liked the designs he put in his first books, and he wanted to share what he saw. His own writing - like his paragraphs about light and shadow on mouldings - are so genuine and earnest, that I can imagine Benjamin choosing the plates for his book with the same passion.

So I'm glad no one slapped a lawsuit on him!

How Long Is Your Cubit?

2009-03-11T10:08:00.009-04:00

I've found another reason for Asher Benjamin's geometry lessons and the proportion diagrams on his plates.

It turns out that in 1800, the various and different measuring systems used in the western world were quite divergent. A cubit seems to have been standard measured: from your outstretched middle finger to your elbow (about 18"). But a yard might be from your finger to your nose, (36") or to your near or opposite shoulder, (30", and 42" respectively).

I think this is great, since I have been measuring with body dimensions for years - using my own body to discretely measure an interesting space without drawing attention to myself by whipping out a tape measure, or helping a client to tell me how big is 'big' by stretching out both arms and saying, "This big?"

In 1793, Napoleon tried to create a standard, a metric system, with some success. And in 1824, the English made a standard yard, also with some success. The process took a good 50 years to take hold, and today we still have lots of regional variations, not to speak of the gulf between inches and centimeters.

Here in the States people measured cloth, grain, lumber using the system they had learned in the 'old country'. A Pennsylvania carpenter who repairs 18th century houses has told me he can tell a house built by a German from one built by a Quaker by its dimensioning.

Measuring

2009-03-03T17:35:00.012-05:00

A friend who reads this blog sent me a link to a book on tools, published by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, so I have requested it through inter-library loan. However, the problem with books on tools is that the authors love what the tools look like, but rarely date them. This makes it very hard for me to see how specific tools evolved.

Meanwhile I have discovered that what I'm really asking is how carpenters measured around 1800.

People didn't need uniform measurements for construction until they wanted to use interchangeable parts. If your yard was 36" and mine was 35" , it wasn't a problem.
When Asher Benjamin writes his first books, we are still making the parts for a house specifically for that house - no buying off the shelf. So when it came to finish work, each piece of moulding added at a door opening or chair rail was made to order, regardless of how it was measured.

Benjamin's introduction to geometry - his first plates - and his descriptions of how to draw the profiles of various mouldings allow his readers to adapt his patterns to their specific buildings, and use whatever measuring tools they liked.

TOOLS

2009-02-16T21:33:00.012-05:00

I am curious about the tools carpenters had around 1800. Asher Benjamin wrote for the trade. He was a 'joiner' himself. He knew what his readers were working with. His books will make more sense if I too know what was in those carpenters' tool boxes.
It is not easy to find any information that's not prefaced with, " I think..." The list so far includes hand saws, chisels, hammers, plumb bob, planes, wooden squares, bits and braces.

No rulers, no measuring sticks. This last fact really interests me.

Eric Sloan wrote about early American tools in the 1960's. His books have beautiful pictures, some dates, and basic information. He knew a great deal more than is in the books. I wish he had written more.

I have some leads to follow, a few people to consult. I may find some resources. This is like a treasure hunt.

INTER-LIBRARY LOAN

2009-02-16T21:16:00.006-05:00

I want to know what other people have written about Asher Benjamin. The books I want to read aren't in most libraries, but through the inter-library loan system I can borrow them. So I went to our public library where I can ask for 3 books a week.

The first came yesterday. It wasn't a book, but a reprint of an article, a very good read.

The library tells me that some of the books I asked for can't be borrowed - too fragile or unique. However, I can go to them, and many are at Historic Deerfield in Deerfield, Mass., about 2 hrs. away.

Asher Benjamin built a school there, now a museum - I have seen it. I look forward to seeing it again.

"beautiful variety of light and shade"

2009-01-23T17:44:00.009-05:00

Asher Benjamin wrote for carpenters. He starts The American Builder's Companion with ten plates of basic knowledge a 'joiner' would have needed in the early 1800's, including how to divide a circle, how to layout mouldings.

Many readers seem to skip this technical part of his books, seeing it as archaic. Sometimes historians are interested in how Georgian architecture changed from using mouldings based on the circle (Roman) to those based on the ellipse (Greek). So they note the plates and move on.

They miss the man who knows how light creates. He cares about what he is seeing so passionately that he figures out how to write about it so he can share it with his readers.
I know first hand that it's not easy to put what an architect sees into words that someone else can understand!

Try this:
" In the Roman ovolo there is no turning inward, at the top: therefore, when the sun shines on its surface, it will not be so bright, on its upper edge, as the Grecian ovolo; nor will it cause so beautiful a line of distinction from the other mouldings, with which it is combined, when it is in shadow, and when lighted by reflection.
...the Grecian, or quirk ovolo, ... if it is entirely in shadow, but receive a reflected light, the bending, or turning inward, at the top, will cause it to contain a greater quantity of shade in that place, but softened downward around the moulding to the under edge."

As I read his text, I met the man himself.

The quotes are from Plate IX, Names of Mouldings, American Builder's Companion, 1810.

My granddaughter

2008-12-13T18:30:00.001-05:00

arrived at 6am on December 11! Of course she is beautiful, and she is healthy.

As her parents and brother live here with us, I am busy. We are all busy!

Architectural ideas are percolating. The December light makes good photographs of buildings and their details hard for me to take, but I am seeing and reflecting.

Asher Benjamin

2008-11-19T15:46:00.017-05:00

Asher Benjamin's pattern books have been an important part of my research library for as long as I can remember. My copies of his 1827 and 1830 editions, reprinted by Dover Publications, are dog eared from years of use. I remember when his first book, The Country Builder's Assistant - originally published in 1797, in a small size that would have fit easily into a carpenter's pocket - was finally reprinted in 1989, and my family members gleefully gave each other copies for Christmas.

Initially, I used his books to study the trends - what builders and owners were thinking in the early 1800s - that I saw on the sea coast north of Boston, where I lived and worked. But I knew of only 2 actual copies of his designs, one in New Hampshire and another in Maine.

Then in the 1990s I happened to tour the Oliver Phelps House in Suffield, Connecticut, on which Asher Benjamin actually worked. And soon after that I moved to western Vermont, where I now see direct copies of plates from The American Builder's Companion (first edition published in 1806), and The Architect, or Practical House Carpentry (1830) all around me. I've since acquired two later volumes as well - Practice of Architecture (1833) and The Builder's Guide (1839) - and I'm beginning to document Asher Benjamin's influence on what I see. I'll post my thoughts and findings here as I develop them.

Are you familiar with Benjamin's work, or have you seen examples of his pattern books in your area? Please share them with me!

Want to read more? The wikipedia entry on Asher Benjamin has recently been updated and is a wonderful resource.

Rumford Roasters

2008-11-18T12:46:00.006-05:00

A Rumford Roaster is a combined stove and oven, built out of brick with iron inserts. It was invented in about 1800 by Count Rumford (born American Benjamin Thompson in Woburn MA, 1753). Rumford worked for many years in Bavaria (where he was named "Count of the Holy Roman Empire" and thus picked up his trade name) and his design was most likely inspired by the German masonry stoves he saw there. German immigrants to the United States also built masonry stove here - you can see one in the German exhibit of the Frontier Culture Museum, in Staunton, VA.

Recently I was at Lorenzo (built in 1807), an estate on the end of Lake Cazenovia. The estate is a NY Historic Site, and the house has what I think is a Rumford Roaster in its kitchen. The owner of Lorenzo, John Lincklaen, was an agent for the Holland Land Company, and traveled back and forth to the Continent on business. Count Rumford had lived in England and France - where he was well known as a scientist and inventor - and his stoves, fireplaces and roasters were well received in England. So perhaps Lincklaen had seen one in his travels, and brought the idea back home to Lorenzo.

But the only other Rumford Roaster I have seen is in Lynnfield, Massachusetts (it looks just like this picture). The Lorenzo kitchen fireplace has the same lower holes for pots and flues, but I'm not sure the roaster on the side is there.

This got me thinking - why aren't there more Rumford stoves like this? Rumford fireplaces were widely built from the late 1790's until 1840, when cast-iron stoves became available. The fireplaces of many homes were retrofitted with the new Rumford shape because it threw heat and drafted so much better than the earlier fireboxes. So why didn't the Roaster enjoy similar success? Perhaps because it wasn't just a matter of an easy retrofit, but would have entailed a reconstruction of the kitchen fireplace?

Rumford's work was published in the States in 1804. In 1811, Asher Benjamin, author of one of the most popular pattern books of its time, devoted 2 plates to a description of the Roaster in his Builder's Companion, so people had to be aware of the concept. Even though the cast iron fittings (the round object in the etching) for the roaster were not cheap, the masonry stove - with holes to set pots in, fire boxes below, and a flue connecting them to the rear (the rectangles on the right side in the illustration) - would have been pretty easy to construct. But I have read of only a few Rumford stoves, and they're in grand houses: Gore Place in Waltham, MA, the Rundlet-May House in Portsmouth, NH. In all the years I've been working on old houses, I've only come across two. Are there more?

Maybe they are hidden in plain sight, like the one at Lorenzo - there, but unrecognized. Please, let me know if you see one!

Note: Both Gore Place and the Rundlet-May House are now museums open to the public in season.

Additional Sources:
http://www.rumford.com/Rumford.html
Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, Sanborn C. Brown, MIT Press, 1981

Tonight at the Bennington Museum!

2008-10-16T18:01:00.007-04:00

I will be speaking on original green tonight at 7 pm at the Bennington Museum. This is an evening to celebrate the publication of their new journal the Wallomsack Review, and the authors of several other articles will also be speaking.

I've expanded on both the original posts and the published article, with additional examples of original green design from around town, so I'm hoping that even if you've been following along from the beginning, you'll see something new and interesting.

The event is free - you can find more information here, and a link to the museum here.

The Walloomsack Review

2008-10-02T20:20:00.016-04:00

Remember all those posts I wrote about the Park-McCullough Carriage House being green?

I'm delighted to report that The Bennington Museum has just published a version of those posts in the latest issue of their new journal, The Walloomsack Review.

Along with the authors of the other articles, I have been invited to speak to the Bennington Historical Society later this month. I plan to condense 300 years of 'original green' American architecture into 15 minutes. You can see their press release here.

Building to the weather - Part 6: The Big House is 'green' too

2008-09-23T09:31:00.021-04:00

In a previous post, I described how the Park-McCullough's Carriage Barn uses 'original green' design to work with the climate. So here is a post about how the main house uses the same green techniques.

The Big House, as the family called their summer home, has porches designed to shield the first floor from the strong summer sunshine. Large windows - 7 ft tall by 3 ft wide - are set across from each other, making cross ventilation easy. Then the Observatory acts as a vent at the top of the House, just the cupola does on the Barn.

This photo shows how the deep porch keeps the main floor in the shade, while the master bedroom on the second floor front corner gets morning sun.

Shutters from bedrooms into the upstairs hall allow air flow across sleeping rooms and up though observatory - creating a summer breeze while preserving privacy.

The Observatory. With its vents it serves as a cupola as well as a wonderful place to look out over the countryside.

The 2 main entrances are to the south and east. The south entry is a weather entry (meaning two sets of doors that act like an air lock), and both are out of the wind.

The southern entry is at the center of the photo, with the tall window allowing light into the weather entry. In the 1890's the family added a breakfast room (visible at the end of the porch), which is sunny all day long.

And like the tack room at the Barn, there are rooms designed to be warm and bright. On the first floor the library (which became Lizzy Park McCullough's morning room) is a small room, easily heated, surrounded on three sides by the House. Similarly Laura Hall Park (Lizzy's mother) had her intimate 'dressing' room on the second floor. It's a beautiful room with a room-wide, floor-length bay window facing south, snugly set in the middle of the house, with it's own fireplace. Laura did beautiful embroidery - she left some for us to admire. It is easy to imagine her sewing by the window.

The south facing bay window floods Laura Hall Park's second floor morning room with light. A morning room was a Victorian lady's personal, informal space, compared to the formal entertaining rooms on the first floor.

So the layout of the House brings light and sunshine into the family space on the second floor. The main bedrooms are on the east and south sides of the House, the swing rooms to the north.
The House also boasted a central heating system when it was built in 1864, but all the rooms still had coal fireplaces (some were later reworked to be wood burning) and all the rooms can be closed in with doors, shutters, and heavy floor length drapes.

A typical bedroom fireplace with a coal insert.

The open second floor sitting room dates from the 1890's renovation, after the central heating system was upgraded.

Read Building to the weather - Part 5.
Read about Original Green.

Bodkins from the Park-McCullough House

2008-09-19T10:50:00.014-04:00

This is an ivory bodkin, photographed laying across oak flooring - it's about 4" long.

A "bodkin," you say? As in, Shakespeare's "Odd's Bodkin"? Yes, it's one and the same.

Bodkins were essential for dressing, before the inventions of buttons, hooks and eyes and of course, zippers. The bodkin is used much like a needle, to pull ribbon (or a leather strip) through a hem. The ribbon then becomes a tie to hold clothing together, such as on a cloak, chemise, laced vest, petticoat, or an apron. Only later, when we had other, more familiar ways to close clothing, did ribbons became merely decorative.

This bodkin is part of one of the needle kits owned the Park and McCullough ladies. It has a nice round end so it won't snag on cloth, as well a wide eye for the ribbon.

The reason for my sudden interest in bodkins is that I just spent 3 weeks helping put together the first needlework tour at the Park-McCullough House. We invited visitors behind the ropes to see over 150 years of work, some in-progress, hand-made and bought patterns, tools and threads. We offered magnifying glasses and white gloves for seeing quilting, dressmaking, mending, crochet, embroidery, white work, filet, counted cross-stitch, needlepoint...

And although I can quilt and knit adequately, I'm no expert on needlework, so I learned a lot working on the exhibit. And now I've held a bodkin.

Slate Roofs 2: The sequel (with a focus on N. Bennington)

2008-08-18T08:14:00.043-04:00

It is hard to decide which roofs to show, or rather, which roofs not to show, since I enjoy them all.

But they are hard to photograph. When I look at a roof with my naked eye, I can see wonderful detail or color, but that often doesn't translate to the picture - if the sun is out, the slate shines, but on a cloudy day, the colors don't show. Photos taken of north sides are best, but some roofs don't face north. Photographing from a distance generally works well, but often trees or houses block my view.

So the photos I've selected to post here may change, as I figure out how to take better pictures.

The Park-McCullough observatory, built in 1864, now missing its iron cresting. Here's a slate roof that is just roofing, while the wood arches, corbels, and brackets are the high points. The Victorian emphasis on surface decoration doesn't come to the fore for another 20 years.

The cupola of the Park-McCullough Stabling, built in 1864. Here the arched vents, the double pitch of the roof, and even the weather vane are more important than the slate.

The elegant tower of the N. Bennington train station.

Roof on a barn in Keene, NH - I imagine that when the load of slate arrived, the roofer looked over the color variation in the lot and decided he could make the diamonds.

The pattern on this roof in Pownal, VT, goes all the way around.

A hexagon slate pattern on a warehouse's Mansard roof, by the railroad in Hoosick Falls, NY

A circular tower with round columns, curly Ionic volutes on the capitals, circular slate, and a ball atop the finial - Bennington

This pattern is on several houses and barns in N. Bennington.

The roof of the Congregational Church in N. Bennington is visible from quite a distance. People passing by on foot or on horseback had plenty of time to enjoy it, but today we whiz past in traffic. I had to take a backstreet so that I could slow down enough to really look.

Roof of Powers Market, in N. Bennington, and neighbors.

Read Slate Roofs 1: Looking up.

Slate Roofs 1: Looking up

2008-08-09T20:51:00.086-04:00

Slate roofs are commonplace around Bennington, VT - you find them on mansions, cottages and sheds.

The slate roof here is just one more flourish on an exuberant Queen Anne Victorian.

A slate roof on a garage. Many roofs are laid like this, with no pattern.

The history of slate use in Bennington
The slate quarries are just up the railroad line in Rutland County, Vt., and Washington County, NY. From the 1800's to the 1920's, slate was the roof of choice. Slate patterns vary by town. In Bennington, many roofs have the same pattern of curved and straight slate, although the number of scalloped rows may vary.

Row of houses for mill workers, with slate roofs using rows of scalloped slate

Scalloped shingles become half circles, scales, when that's all there is. This roof is on the same street as the ones shown above.

Brattleboro, Vt. roofers laid their slate in a different pattern, a double overlap:

The Creamery Covered Bridge, just off Rte 9 in West Brattleboro, has a double-overlap roof like this one.

Slate is both strong and attractive
Good slate lasts at least 150 years, poor slate only 75 years. The underlayment, flashing, and nails will wear out well before before the stone, so slate pieces were often reused. As an added decorative bonus, slate comes in various colors, and pieces split from the same block will have gradations of color. Different quarries will also have different shades and intensities of a similar color.

Used slate showing the range of color - even in slate from the same quarry. The gray layer is sloughing off on the furthest left piece, revealing a reddish layer underneath.

Note double nail holes on all but one (indicating that those pieces have been used twice) and the vertical lines showing how the next layer of slate was laid upon these. The brown on the top half is dirt, and the little swirls are lichen.

Here are at least 4 different slate colors. The green pieces are probably patches. Some of the darkish red slate is also sloughing off and chipping with age.

Red slate has always been in short supply, and is therefore the most expensive. In 1879 three quarries produced red slate, but today there is only one.

a red slate roof on a company's headquarters

Some owners used slate to create eye-catching roofs, and some roofers had fine imaginations. Some quite simple houses have amazing roofs (Hoosick Falls roof, below) and some amazing mansions have simple roofs (photo at beginning of post).
Perfectly placed colors on a roof in Hoosick Falls, NY, with both scallops and hexagons.
The hexagon slate was used in Hoosick, but is rare in Bennington, just next door.

This roof uses the expensive red slate sparingly, for emphasis

The Thatcher House has slate on the walls as well as the roof, and all of it is scalloped.

Sometimes only one color is used, from one quarry. Here the church's walls and windows are what's important. The slate roof is a quiet surface, a complimentary color.

The decline of slate use
Beginning in the 1920's, if a slate roof failed it was replaced with asphalt shingles, the 'modern' solution. So the roofers who had installed slate had no reason to pass on their skills, and by the 1970's very few people could lay or repair slate roofs.

This roof in Brattleboro, may once have had a design, or the reddish slate were used for patching. Some of the slate in the lower right corner do not have enough overlap.

A roof with broken, missing (along the lower edge), and loose slate. The darker slate to the right is a patch.

Today, although we are relearning the old trade, we haven't mastered all the tricks. And sadly, many people don't value their original slate roofs. When I went to photograph an amazing roof for this article, I discovered that it was gone, replaced since I last saw it in the fall by dull, asphalt shingles.

As this post is about the general use of slate, I have left out photos of many delightful local roofs and details. My next post will be a series of neat roofs and towers, just for fun. In the meantime, here is a site and a book for more information:
Slate Valley Museum, in Granville, NY
The Slate Roof Bible, Joseph Jenkins, Jenkins Publishing, Grove City, PA, 2003

Read Slate Roofs 2: the sequel.

Building to the weather - what is Original Green?

2008-06-25T08:31:00.009-04:00

"Original Green, passive solar, building to the weather."

These are all ways to describe the same thing - how people all over the world have traditionally built to work with their specific climate.

People who look at architecture often see buildings as aesthetic symbols, or evidence of a society's aspirations. Sometimes they see buildings in terms of structure and technology. Often they focus on monuments, places intended for ceremony. Europe's Gothic cathedrals are excellent examples of all those ideas. But buildings are foremost shelter, a place to be inside - protected from the weather, whatever it may be - spaces for living. Even cathedrals had spaces where people lived - cloisters - and often served as informal gathering places.

But our ancestors spent much of their lives outside. They lived without electricity, central heat or air conditioning, so they had to understand their surroundings. They learned how to adapt their buildings to their weather, making their daily lives more comfortable by how they fashioned those buildings. And they did this with no modern technology. Instead, they understood the basic forces: sun, rain, wind - the macro-climate - and their building sites, where topography and geography create specific micro-climates. Their solutions are wonderful, inventive, brilliant. So what I'm saying, is, " Hey, pay attention! This is great stuff! It's all around us, in its marvelous variety. Maybe you are lucky enough to already live in it!"

Read the series about building to the weather.

Building to the weather - Part 5: What goes where, a no-tech solution

2008-06-01T13:34:00.022-04:00

People in every part of the world have learned over the centuries how to work with their specific conditions - their macro- and micro- climates. This is the technical definition of 'original green'. I have used the past several posts to detail the design of the Park-McCullough carriage house, in order to illustrate how the architect worked with his knowledge of the Southern Vermont climate, while also creating a visual masterpiece.

This post focuses on how the layout of the spaces inside the barn contributes to how the building works with the weather. Here's the floorplan: South is to the top, north on the bottom, the horse stalls to the west (right side), the front door to the east (left side). The general purpose room is where a horse would have been harnessed to a carriage, while the small bay to the south (top) was for carriages, maybe those needing maintenance. Note than no door opens to the north or west - only toward the mild east or the sunny south. There is a logical, efficient progression of spaces from the horse stalls to the carriages and on to the front door, with stops along the way for harnessing and tack, additions on the sides for staff quarters and repair, and space overhead for hay and grain.

This building is also designed to maximize the comfort of its occupants all year round - without technology. The long working side of the barn faces south - the previously mentioned spaces for the carriages to be readied for use, as well as the tack room holding leather bridles, saddles, horse paraphernalia. Next comes the store room for harness, and the grooming room with double doors facing south, and then the stable. On the other side of the building, the north side of the main carriage space (holding carriage not in use) can be closed off in winter by 20' long sliding doors. There is a 'people' door, (only 3ft. wide,) between the hall and the north bays, bearing Trenor Park's monogram, which speaks to this north side's regular separation from the main bay.

Continuing around the building, the horse stalls on the west end need only small windows set high in the wall, literally 'horse windows', which are just the right size and height for horses to look out of. Thus, with only a few small openings, the stable also becomes a barrier to the cold west wind in winter, helped in part because the horses' own heat will keep the stable warm, making it a buffer for the main barn.

The two chimneys in the barn serve the rooms designed for people; the grooms' quarters on the north side, and the tack room, on the south. The tack room - a work room - is buffered from the elements by being set in the middle of the building, almost entirely surrounded by the carriage and store rooms. It has a large window for natural light, and the warmth of the winter sun . Even its exterior walls are set in a sun pocket, where they are protected by south and east facing walls. With a coal stove, this room would have been a cozy place to mend tack and talk about horses. The wash room is protected by its location too. It is in the center of the carriage house, beside the tack room, under the hay loft. The water used to wash the carriages drained down the sloped tin floor into the cellar. That water would not have been quite so cold here in the winter, in a room buffered on all sides. Above it all is the hay loft, filled with fabulously good insulation (hay!), which disappears in the summer when it is not needed, and reappears each fall.

And last of all, there are those large carriage house windows, which let in the welcome winter sun shine, and can be opened across from each other in good weather, to encourage summer breezes. And so we come full circle to my post about the cupola, and how it acts as original air-conditioning.

Read Building to the weather - Part 4.
Read Building to the weather - Part 6.
Read about Original Green.

Building to the Weather - Part 4: Eaves, at work and play

2008-05-22T20:13:00.025-04:00

Eaves do very important work.
From a practical perspective, they help to keep the rain water that drips off of a building's roof away from its walls. This is important because rain water on the walls will become trapped water inside the walls, which quickly leads to mildew, mold, and rot. Similarly, eaves keep icicles from forming directly on a building's outer walls (which is bad because an icicle on the wall will become an icicle dripping down the wall, leading again to water inside the wall).

Eaves that stick out 6" are just barely deep enough to keep rain off, so a 9"-12" overhang is better. In this photo of the Carriage House, the eaves are 18" deep. In addition, copper gutters - now worn out and removed - sat in the curved brackets running along the edge, adding 4" more depth as well as redirecting the water.

Eaves are also for play, of course - they make the carriage house fun to look at. And without eaves, this building would just be an awkward box with bumps. The length of the eaves, their edge mouldings, and the rows of brackets underneath all come together to create a roof that visually shelters what's inside and delights the eye. The corbels facing both ways at the ends of the dormer windows and the at the barn's corners (see the first photo) are just frosting on the cake.

The eaves here have one other job - quite visible in the second picture. This is the south view of the west end of the barn - the eaves keep the summer sun from shining in the windows. This photograph was taken in early May, when the shadow line of the eaves is below the small windows in the stable - the sun will not shine in these windows again until late August. With the extra 4"of gutter, the windows would be shaded earlier and later in the year. Because the sun's path across the sky changes with the seasons (due to the Earth's tilt and rotation around the sun), in winter the sun will be low enough in the sky to shine below the eaves, and into those windows, bringing light and heat to the space inside.

That's a lot of creative 'green' stuff for an ordinary building detail to do.

Read Building to the Weather - Part 3.
Read Building to the Weather - Part 5.
Read about Original Green.

Building to the weather - Part 3: Original AC, or how to keep your barn from blowing up, and your horses cool

2008-05-11T08:27:00.015-04:00

That's a pretty amazing cupola - with all its roof angles and arched vents. What a great architectural flourish at the top of the Park-McCullough carriage barn!

But it's also an important part of the cooling system. A vent at the top of a hay barn is essential, because stored hay gets hot - hot enough to burst into flame. So these vents let that heat escape out into the air. They also help to keep the barn cool for people. Heat rises, so if there is an opening at the top of a building warm air trapped inside will escape. As that warm air goes out, replacement air has to come in from someplace else. If there is an opening - a door or window - lower down in the building, new, cooler air will flow in. And if the vent at the top is smaller than the opening below, the amount of air coming in is greater than the amount that can easily go out. And more air wants to come in behind it! So the air going out has to rush, which makes a breeze.

So, in the summer, when the windows are open and the doors that lead up to the hay loft are open, a breeze will keep the carriage house, the workmen, and the horses cool.

Read Building to the Weather - Part 2.
Read Building to the Weather - Part 4.
Read about Original Green.

Building to the weather - Part 2: Creating a sun pocket

2008-04-28T11:33:00.024-04:00

Here is the main facade of the Park-McCullough House Carriage Barn.

As I wrote in the previous post, it faces east, away from prevailing winds and into the morning sun. But you'll notice that the door - a huge door wide enough for carriages and horses - is set back. This is partly so that the hay door above is easily accessible for hay wagons - they can park underneath and unload. But the recessed space also protects against the wind and gathers
the sun, making a pocket of warmth. Gardeners know that sheltered sunny nook where the first daffodils will bloom; this recessed entry creates a sheltered sunny place for horses and people.

Many buildings have a double entry that functions like an air lock: you enter through a set of doors into a little vestibule, close the doors behind you, then open another set of doors to go into the main space. It's a way to keep cold air out of a warm space (and vice versa where there is air-conditioning.)

But it's not practical to have a double entry on a barn. Imagine how big the airlock would need to be for a carriage with horses! So this recessed entry is a pretty good substitute - the doors can be opened without the wind rushing in, and on a sunny day in winter, heat may even come in.

Read Building to the Weather - Part 1.
Read Building to the Weather - Part 3.
Read about Original Green.

Building to the weather - Part 1: Maximizing sun exposure

2008-04-28T09:23:00.024-04:00

What does it mean to 'build to the weather'?

Well, look at this 1864 barn. It's the Park-McCullough House carriage house, designed by an architect for a very wealthy family. A working stable, people and horses lived in it year round. It had very little heat, a stove in the tack room, another in the living quarters. However, its use of natural forces for winter warmth and summer cooling were quite effective, and can be seen in many other barns built for ordinary farmers.

From the photograph, you can see that there is plenty of land - the barn could have been placed and set up in many different ways. Architecturally, it was placed visually to compliment the House, sitting just beyond it and framing the lawn. The main facade looked back to the House (and the flower garden and pond, which are no longer there). add another photograph of the House and barn together

The architect also considered the climate. He understood how to work with the sun. He set the long side of the barn to face due south for maximum sunshine - technically called 'solar gain'. The east end, the front, would get morning sun; the south side, sun all day; the west side, afternoon sun; and the north side, a brief bit of sun only in mid-summer. He also knew that in this part of western Vermont the wind blows mainly from the west, sometimes from the north. Wind is good for cooling in the summer, but makes things colder in the winter - technically called 'wind chill'.

So how does this carriage house work with the sun to minimize wind chill? Answers to follow....

Read Building to the Weather - Part 2.
Read about Original Green.

Buildings of interest 1: Norton-Fenton House, Pleasant St, Bennington VT

2008-04-15T08:16:00.011-04:00

In 1838, Luman Norton, owner of the Norton Pottery, moved down the hill from the Old Center of Bennington to live on Pleasant Street, to be near his factory on the Wolloomsac River. He now needed a 2 family house. He had recently been appointed a judge, and opened a second factory to manufacture firebrick (the kind used in the backs of fireplaces and in refractories). His son-in-law, Christopher Fenton, ran the pottery factory, so it made sense that the two families live side by side. However, the new house needed to be more than just a 2 family house with its multiple doors and chimneys. Norton required a residence worthy of a successful manufacturer, and a judge.

Here is what he built: a brick house with a grand, 2 story tall, porch framed by columns and a pediment (the triangle that sits above the columns), with a broad frieze board across the top, right up under the roof, bright white against the red brick . The columns he used are ‘ionic’, the style favored in the Old Center of Bennington. Ionic capitals, with those curved horns on the top, were seen as symbols for virtue and beauty. His front doors and sidelights - now almost invisible under the little porches - repeat the details.

On the ends, the brick walls step up above the roof , include the chimneys, and visually enlarge the house. These walls are structural, 3 bricks thick. They are laid in the pattern called Flemish Bond, which is one of the most difficult to lay neatly. The bricks placed on end - called ‘headers’, because when the wall is finished you see the end, or the 'head' of the brick - tie the rows of brick together. In Flemish Bond, every layer has headers. If the work isn’t done with great care, it isn’t neat. This is very neat and handsome work, because Norton could afford the best.

All the parts, the 3 strong columns right there in the center of the front, the white trim, and the tall brick ends make this 2 family house into an imposing residence. Norton used the normal materials of the time - brick, wood, stone - and details well known in the Old Center -Ionic columns, pediments, friezes. His house, one of the first built below the hill by a successful Benningtonian, combined them in a way that had not been done before. Norton built in a new fashion in the new center of Bennington.

Read about other Buildings of Interest: The Park McCullough House.

A note on why I'm blogging

2008-04-07T13:59:00.010-04:00

Architecture and construction are governed by changes in technology - style comes about after the change in how we can build. I have seen the changes caused by the end of old growth lumber and the introduction of engineered lumber. I remember when the first machine that could cut granite counter tops was set up in town. I saw how the ability to make inexpensive mouldings out of finger-jointed wood or mdf changed window and door casings, and changed our clients' expectations. So I want to think about how the development of technology we now take for granted (wire screens) or see as eye candy ( shutters) has impacted design. And how people were inventive as they came to understand what the technology could do.

When I give the tour at the Historic Park-McCullough House, and I talk about this stuff, people are fascinated - they love knowing how The House works. So I need to be accurate, not just hypothesizing.

I'm also interested because screens and shutters are examples of green technology and design. They can be made from renewable resources. They don't use fossil fuel to operate. They can be adjusted for the weather. They can be repaired without fancy tools. And they will not be obsolete because 'they' don't make the part anymore.

I also love to learn about how people have interacted with their spaces. I share the enthusiasm of the visitors to The House - I think it's fun to imagine being the first person to turn a sieve upside down and recognize that it could keep flies off the food. Or to realize that, of course, mosquitoes don't bite when there's a breeze, so how do we make a breeze?

Screens

2008-03-30T07:25:00.018-04:00

As I wrote the first draft for this, the chickens were complaining about the snow. They don't like to step in it, and shake their toes. It covered the ground where they scratch. We are all ready for spring, and screens!

This post on screens is a follow-up to the post on shutters. They are related in that as screens become popular, the use of shutters declined.

The Park-McCullough House has half screens that are a later addition (or at least the fasteners do not date to 1864) to the windows. Trenor Park used the latest technology when he built his house in 1864. Did he specify screens? We haven't seen any references in our archives. The House has a extensive collection of photographs, but I know of no early pictures with screens on windows in the background.

So, when might the family have added screens? My usual first stops are Victorian Interior Decoration, Winkler and Moss, for general history, and then the pattern books, mill work catalogs, and the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs. The pattern books may be promoting a new idea; when something is in the catalogs, it's an accepted part of the culture.

VID has a wonderful picture of horrible mosquitoes in an 1885 ad , as well as ads for mosquito netting over beds from the 1840's to the 1890's. The picture of the embroidered screen doors above comes from the 1893 catalog of the Mulliner Box & Planing Co., (republished by Dover in 1995). The 1895 Ward catalog shows similar screen doors and sells screening for do-it-yourself-ers.
I know from my own work (as an architect) that sun porches sprout on houses in great numbers in New England around 1900 - glassed-in new and existing porches, with screens stored close by for summer use. Screen porches are standard features by the 1920's. But they don't appear in the pattern books. Was the public ahead of the designers?

I think technology is a deciding factor. When could we manufacture screening? The research I have found says the English made 'wire gauze' as early as the 1830's. American companies who made screening for sieves, made screens too by the late 1850's. The US made screens were used mainly to cover food from flies - upside down sieves! (The weave was not fine enough to keep out mosquitoes.)

However, the Justin Smith Morril Homestead in Strafford Village, Vermont (built in the early 185o's, enlarged in 1859) has screens which may be original. The early screens were painted because the iron mesh would rust, and may have been used for privacy, rather than to keep out flying things. 'Wire cloth' needed to be finely woven to keep out mosquitoes, then it needed to be inexpensive. That seems to have happened in 1876 when a patent was issued for a power loom to weave screening - to Mr. Wickwire of Cortlandt, NY. (What a great name!) The quantity of screening produced in the US increased more than10 fold in the next 20 years.

The Park-McCullough House has screen panels in various states of repair in the basement. (The family saved everything.) Maybe they can be dated.

A great resource here was '100 Years of American Commerce, 1795-1895, edited by Chauncey M. Depew which I found reprinted on-line by Google Booksearch.

Building to the weather: Whys and Wherefores of Shutters

2008-03-18T09:14:00.009-04:00

OK, I know that they were for protection - you closed up the house when you went away, or against a coming storm. Or they kept out the cold - 'Indian shutters', which came about after the Revolution, were not to protect against Indians, but for warmth in winter, 'coolth' in the summer, and for visual privacy from the street. And I know that our ancestors closed in their houses because they considered 'night air' dangerous.

I also know that 1) most houses were designed with windows directly opposite each other to encourage air flow, 2) in climates warmer than the north east, the kitchen was completely open in the summer - hence the 'dutch' door, where the bottom part keep animals out and small children in.

But as soon as the circular saw allowed us to make fins, shutters became popular in a way that they hadn't been before - they become standard equipment. And then it's not until the 1920's that they become decorative, with little cut-outs on the upper panels.

Why? Are the reasons I've listed enough? I have read that the shutters protected fabric from fading, that a dark interior was fashionable. I am still skeptical, I think these are secondary benefits. The Park-McCullough House has movable interior shutters on all windows, even in the servants' wing. It also has, as original equipment, louvered doors as second doors from the bedrooms in the main house into the upstairs hall (which is a room about 14' wide and 50' long). The House also has a belvedere, (a tower in the center of the house for surveying the beautiful countryside) which even today in the summer easily cools the House. The scientific principal behind it is called a Venturi.

I was recently reminded that mosquitoes do not bite when there is a breeze. I also know that the technology to make windows screens that could protect against mosquitoes was not really available until the 1890's. ( It has to do with weaving fine wire mesh .)

Then I thought about how in the evening the heat of the day could escape out the top of the house, bringing the cool air in from below, and keep the mosquitoes moving. And provide privacy...

I think I've got it!

References:
Victorian Interior Decoration, Winkler and Moss, Henry Holt, NY,1986
How Night Air Became Good Air,1776-1930, Baldwin,
Environmental History, Vol. 8, Issue 3
and conversations with John Crosby Freeman, "The Color Doctor"

Read Building to the weather - Part 1.
Read Building to the weather: Screens.

Neither Batty nor Swan!

2008-02-29T17:21:00.008-05:00

This is a photo of the mouldings in my house, which look so much like the ones used in the Robert E. Lee house, in Arlington VA. I thought it would be an easy matter to matching this moulding pattern to an illustration in a pattern book - I assumed that I'd simply look in the books that the American builders (joiners) were using in about 1800, find the right page, and there it would be.

Nope.

The door casings here at the farm and at Lee's house have a simple 1/4 circle curve, as part of a sequence of square edges, beads and flat sections (although not in that order!). But the mouldings in Batty Langley's 'The Builder's Director or Bench-Mate', 1751, and in Abraham Swan's 'The British Architect', 1758, both published in London, are more complicated. Both show reverse curves: Cimarecta, which first curves in before it curves out, and Ogee, which starts the other way, convex before it is concave. But the American casings use 1/4 round or a Scotia, which is a 1/4 round that curves in, not out.

However, Asher Benjamin, in his book 'The Country Builder's Assistant,' published in 1795 while he still was practicing in various towns on the Connecticut River, show an 'architrave' similar to the ones I know. So, was Benjamin inventing? If he was copying, who was his inspiration? Was his book well enough distributed that carpenters 500 miles away from each other would have seen it? Is this an example of different 'styles' (preferring one shape over another), or is a reverse curve moulding harder to make? Or is this something about the tools - the planes, the knives or blades which were available to the builders?

Sunday Drives

2008-02-25T13:01:00.003-05:00

I just created a sub-blog, to archive my old columns for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. These received a Massachusetts Historic Preservation Award in 1995. I have had them in hard-copy only, in a binder in a file cabinet, for the last 10 years or so, but recently my daughter has been typing them up, and editing the newspaper's typographical errors, and trying to piece them together where the original newsprint (or xerox copy) has fallen apart. So now we are making them available in electronic form, and I added a link here to the sub-blog. So far, there's only one posted, but we will add more as they become available.

Thinking about old house tours

2008-02-25T11:29:00.003-05:00

This is a photo of the Park-McCullough House, in Bennington VT, where I volunteer as a docent. I took the photo from their website. I'm currently designing a walking tour of the grounds, for people who just drop in - when it's done, it will be available on the website.

Just this weekend, I took a tour with my family of Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. We had a great time, especially since I discovered that the molding in the oldest section of the house (1805) is almost an exact match to the molding in my own (1815) farmhouse, in Vermont. (Now I have to go back to my library, and figure out what designer they were both pulling from. I think it's either Swan or Batty Langly.) The tour was also fun because the two young guides took us on an extended tour after everyone else moved on, and we got to see and talk about all the fun details of the house. There are doors between the old and newer sections which do not line up, and a hobbit door in the basement, leading to a tunnel under the house. But the slave quarters, which are undergoing renovation, were the most interesting of all, because all the layers of brick, plaster and framing are visible.