Pattern Builders

an appreciation for timber framed buildings and paul russell

Here's a link to a very good, brief article from Paul Russell about the history of timber framed buildings and roofs.

 

In August of 2003, I had the unique pleasure of spending a day with Paul Russell, a gifted English carpenter, scholar, story-teller. I was in the UK with a small group from the Timber Framer's Guild touring various timber framed buildings and attending a Carpenters Fellowship meeting.

 

 

at Salisbury Cathedral

 

One highlight of the trip for me was the day spent with Paul Russell as our guide. We toured some of his own work and climbed to the top of Salisbury Cathedral to see the interior timber framing of the Great Spire.

 

 

Salisbury Cathedral

 

At the end of the day, a few steps away from the bucolic scene below, some us retired with Mr. Russell to a great little pub nearby. We all enjoyed a few pints of a local brew, and the day stands out for me as a fine memory. Paul Russell and I got talking and laughing, and the beer kept coming. The ceiling of the pub in some parts was barely 6' feet high, but very comfortable, with room for only a handful of people.

 

 

a classic timber framed home near West Dean in Sussex

 

By midnight, there were just a few of us left in the place. Paul and I went out to his car where he pulled out some old French journals buried under some extension cords and chisels. The journals were written by French Compagnons (a traditional French master guild where each student is required to tour france - a la the tour de france - and master his skill in each region - in this case carpentry and timber framing - while writing his own journals, or textbooks, for reference later in life).

 

We brought the old books back inside the pub and pored over them for the next 2 hours with a few more pints. The books were all in French, but had they been in English it may not have matterred much at that point. The drawings, however, were incredible.

 

Anyway, Russell and the remains of our tiny group parted ways at about 2am and I made my way home to West Dean College where I was staying next to this Christopher Alexander masterpiece.

 

 

 credit: Center for Environmental Structures, West Dean Visitor's Center, C. Alexander

 

I gained a lot of appreciation for the rich history and tradition of timber framed buildings on that trip; perhaps as much as I ever have.

 

The Timber Framer's Guild usually coordinates one or two of these trips every year and I highly recommend them to anybody. You won't find a better group of people, and you'll visit behind-the-scenes aspects of some spectacular buildings with experts who will shed all sorts of light on the history, construction, and cultural influence of native buildings.

An ode to brick

"Ask the brick what it wants to be - it wants to be an arch"  - Louis Kahn

My favorite building material may be brick; but like many builders and architects, I don't often have the chance to use it in a way that highlights its inherent qualities and potential.  I need to work on that.

Architect Louis Kahn's appreciation, endorsement, and application of brick are known worldwide.  As a student 25 years ago, I learned that, as with so many materials and methods of construction, the history of brick is a history of mankind.

Nine thousand years of man firing clay into hand-sized units has left a rich, tangible, historical record visible all over the world.  Today we call bricks stretchers, headers, rowlocks, soldiers, sailors, and shiners depending on how they're laid.  There are standard, modular, oversized, and roman-sized bricks.  There are also walking soldiers and standing soldiers.  Combined with many shapes and sizes, good design, and the capable hands of good masons, great buildings result.

The old Pension Building in Washington, DC is a fine example.  It's now appropriately the National Building Museum.  My wife, Molly, and I frequently take our kids there for various exhibits or demonstrations, and once in a while I'll catch a lecture there.  Bricks are everywhere in the building - and everywhere purposefully and positively used.  The massive atrium columns, too, are made of brick, though they're covered with a faux-painted plaster veneer.  Outside, inside, on the floors and in the steps bricks were carefuly laid and have ever-so-gracefully aged.

The interior steps struck me the most on our last visit.  My children love playing on them.  A strange, natural, universal attraction compels them to walk, sit, crawl, run, and jump on the steps.  Built with a deeper-than-normal tread depth and shallow riser height, I once heard that they were designed to make it easier for the Civil War's wounded and crippled men to ascend.  Wide and shallow, the staircases can carry a horse and its rider up and into the building.  If so, it's a wonderful, early example of accessible design.

The building's friezes tell the story.  My children quickly pointed out to me that in the sculpted figures wrapping the building, many men are bandaged, walking with crutches, missing arms and legs.  Kids notice these things.  When my daughters Helen and Joan asked "Why?", I began an unworthy attempt to tell them how those men had fought a horrible war to keep our country together.  Nonetheless, it was a nice opportunity to present a little history to little people; but as I began, the image of my own children became transposed into the sculpted frieze of mere boys exposed to the worst violence that man may have ever seen - and it stopped me in my tracks.

Looking down lay juxtaposed my own children's small feet against the warm, worn brick steps hollowed and hallowed by the feet of those soldiers.

So it is that brick has a way of recording our history and heritage that few, if any, materials can similarly document and display.

When I next look at a soldier course, I hope to reconsider that bricks can do so many things well.  In his own words, Mr. Kahn admits to searching for "a poetic way of saying 'know your material, don't push it to do something it doesn't do well.' "  Yes, Kahn loved the arch; but it was about much more than that to him.  The arch offers shelter and carries weight over a distance, but it's well-worn steps that carry us through our lives.

I think Louis Kahn knew that, too.