Traditional trades

Traditional Trades is a loosely defined categorization of building trades and craftsmen who actively practice traditional trades in respect of historic preservation or heritage conservation of the built environment.

Trade technologies

Building trades commonly associated as traditional include masonry, timber framing, log building, traditional roofing, carpentry and joinery, blacksmithing, plasterwork, painting and ornamental metals. Traditional trades and the knowledge of hands-on process represent a resource to historic preservation to balance against the resource of heritage structures within the built environment, the knowledge of materials science and past architecture, and the availability of materials. Without the knowledge of traditional trades skilled in heritage conservation work to apply hands-on work the heritage environment cannot be maintained.

Traditional trades such as carpenters and timber framers; masons, plasterers, lime burners, and brick makers; painters; blacksmiths; and slate, metal, shingle, tile, and thatch roofers, are mythically said to practice a “dying” art. While it is true that some techniques of the past are not well enough understood, it is also true that these crafts have been practiced continuously all over the world without dying at all. Traditional trades not only restore and help to maintain buildings, but also stabilize priceless archaeological sites, and in doing so, they help us understand the techniques used at places like Cuzco, Stonehenge, and Angkor Wat.

Materials technologies

The traditional trades focus on preservation of the knowledge of craft work specific to historic building technologies and traditional/non-traditional building materials. Traditional building materials and traditional trade technologies are associated with stone, brick, terra cotta, adobe, timber and log, slate and metal roofing, fine and vernacular carpentry, ornamental plaster (scagliola), stained glass, window and door restoration, cast iron and wrought iron.

Green trades

Traditional building technologies tend towards a closer relationship of the built environment to an in-practice understanding, interaction and use of natural resources and recycled or salvaged building materials than is common in the practice of modern and contemporary building technologies. In many respects the background of the traditional trade techniques date into centuries though practitioners commonly avail themselves of modern technologies and construction practice.

There are practitioners within the traditional trades who insist on traditional techniques such as the forbidding of the use of power tools... though these tendencies are relatively rare.

Knowledge of process

As an expansion to an emphasis on materials science (as with an architectural conservator) the primary orientation of traditional trades tends toward the in-process work activity and physical interaction and intervention with the building materials and the coordination, education and project management of in-field work teams.

Team members

Traditional trades are quite often team members with architectural conservators, preservation architects and structural engineers in both the design phase investigation of heritage sites as well as involved directly in the undertaking of the hands-on restoration process. Traditional trades as a resource to the historic preservation industry provide a physical grounding in feasibility, construction logic, field and site logistics, reference to skilled traditional trades practitioners, estimate and budget considerations.

Availability

Skilled traditional trades practitioners are generally available to preservationists and property stewards who give themselves a chance to find them. Besides the Internet and verbal networking, information about traditional trades can be found through trade associations and training programs, both private and governmental. If a particular job is limited to union workers, the union should provide workers with the appropriate skills or else allow an exception for a particular task.

A traditional trades practitioner may also be able to recommend experts in related skills, as well as promote good communications among the different disciplines at work on any given project.

Problems

Since the 1940s, particularly in the United States, the natural foes of restoration craftsmanship have been lowest-bidder contract selection, pressure from developers to destroy and build new, the blue-collar versus white-collar class distinction, cheaper production-oriented materials such as wallboard, and a fondness for untested quick-fix solutions. With the increase in appreciation for the environment, and because of the loss of some special landmarks and vital neighborhoods, these foes have lost some of their clout, and there is increased respect for the skilled people who can help us maintain what we have.

Education

There are a number of education opportunities available to individuals with an interest to learn traditional trades. There are specialized vocational programs with an emphasis on traditional trade practices. Beyond formal education programs there is a highly informal and experiential based learning obtained in the field and through work experience with individual practitioners of traditional trades.

Because of the hands-on nature of the relaxing, education almost always begins with a mentor and/or training nut. Family businesses pass on these crafts. Trade unions have training programs. Established historic preservation businesses maintain internships for students in trade schools. Amish framers and carpenters have had a special role in sustaining traditional skills in framing and carpentry; many trades workers owe a debt to them. As the craftsman increases in skill, learning will come from study, from workshops, from travel and personal contacts, and from clues found in the work itself. A master craftsman will be able to date a building by the way it was made, help to identify the sources of its problems, advise the preservationist about appropriate materials and methods, and restore or recreate the original fabric with the least danger to the building as a whole.

[http://www.btc.edu/current_students/programs_list_detail.cfm?ID=5 Belmont Tech]

[http://www.redwoods.edu/departments/construction/Restoration/index.asp College of the Redwoods]

[http://www.scad.edu/historic-preservation/ Savannah College of Art & Design]

[http://www.buildingartscollege.us/01_college/index.html American College of the Building Arts]

[http://www.nbss.org/home/index_flash.asp North Bennet Street School]

[http://www.pinemountainsettlementschool.com Pine Mountain Settlement School]

* In Europe are the Gewerbe Akademie in Rottweil Germany; Compagnons du Devoir in France, Telford College in Scotland, and masonry trades programs in Ireland.
* International Trades Education Symposia (ITES) have been held in 2005 at Belmont Technical College in Ohio and in 2007 in [http://iptw.org/IPTW-ITES%20agenda.pdf Telborg, Sweden] . These deal with the availability and quality of traditional trades education programs worldwide.

See also

*Historic preservation
*Museum of Early Trades and Crafts

External links

* [http://www.iptw.org Preservation Trades Network] (PTN): membership community organization focused on traditional trades practitioners and allied professionals in the international preservation industry
* [http://www.tfguild.org/ Timber Framers Guild] (TFG)