Rudy Christian
Preservation Trades
What are (is, was, were?) “preservation trades”? Honestly, I haven’t got a clue! Well, maybe a clue, but certainly not what I would consider a good answer. I know what “preservation” is because my grandmother used to make preserves, and with all this stuff going on with Wall Street I have a pretty good idea what “trades” are, so maybe preservation trades has something to do with putting your money in jars and storing it in the cellar? Come to think of it, I wish I had done that a year ago!
Sorry, couldn’t help myself, but on a more serious note, lets talk about preservation trades. Preservation, which the rest of the world calls conservation, is in a nutshell keeping historic buildings useful. Preservation is also another term for maintenance. However you look at it, preservation is work and to do it right it requires knowledge and skill. So how about trades? What are they? In the earliest and simplest of terms they can be categorized as carpentry, masonry and ironwork. When building began there was only masonry, working with stone, and carpentry, working with wood. Ironwork came later. These trades are so much a part of the fabric of our lives that entire parts of history are named for them. Everyone learns about the “stone age” and the “iron age” in school. I wonder why there was never a “wood age”?
So what are preservation trades?
When the Preservation Trades Network (PTN) was formed as a task-force of the Association for Preservation Technologies (APT) its purpose was to provide a voice for the trades; the professionals who actually work with the stone and wood and iron. At the time it was thought that the people who did that work on old buildings were somehow different than the ones who worked on new buildings, that somehow a different set of knowledge and skills was required. What many of us have learned in the decade since is that trades are trades and the difference is really that of understanding traditional trades, and it turns out there are quite a number of them.
Masonry for example encompasses numerous trades. At the core are stonework and brickwork, or “red masonry” and each of those fields contain numerous specialties and refinements just as working with lime plaster, or slate or wrought iron does. Timber framing requires knowledge that can be traced back thousands of years but uses the same materials as does fine cabinetry and decorative wood carvings and it is the preservation and application of that ancient knowledge that will enable us to conserve and maintain our historic architectural heritage. Preservation is knowledge.
Today architects who specialize in historic preservation and the property owners who are stewards of our heritage have a resource that is much greater than it was even ten years ago; the realization that the Whitehill report was wrong and that the trades are not dead and never have been. Access to trades education is growing and the understanding that skilled and knowledgeable trades people are an important component of planning and practicing preservation is as well. The world of historic conservation is changing and personally, I think it’s for the better.
So what are preservation trades? Maybe we should call them “preserved” trades? Whatever we call them, I’m glad they’re still around.
Rudy R. Christian is a founding member and past president of the Timber Framers Guild and of Friends of Ohio Barns and a founding member and executive director of the Preservation Trades Network. He is also a founding member of the Traditional Timberframe Research and Advisory Group and the International Trades Education Initiative. He speaks frequently about historic conservation and also conducts educational workshops. Rudy has also published various articles, including “Conservation of Historic Building Trades: A Timber Framer’s View” in the “APT Bulletin,” Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, and his recent collaborative work with author Allen Noble, entitled “The Barn: A Symbol of Ohio,” has been published on the Internet. In November 2000, the Preservation Trades Network awarded Rudy the Askins Achievement Award for excellence in the field of historic preservation.
As president of Christian & Son, his professional work has included numerous reconstruction projects, such as the historic “Big Barn” at Malabar Farm State Park near Mansfield, OH, and relocation of the 19th-century Crawford Horse Barn in Newark, OH. These projects featured “hand raisings,” which were open to the public and attracted a total of 130,000 interested spectators. He also led a crew of timber framers at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, Masters of the Building Arts program, in the re-creation and raising of an 18th-century carriage house frame on the Mall in Washington, DC. Roy Underhill’s “Woodright’s Shop” filmed the event for PBS, and Roy participated in the raising.
Christian & Son’s recent work includes working with a team of specialists to relocate Thomas Edison’s #11 laboratory building from the Henry Ford Museum to West Orange, NJ, where it originally was built. During the summer of 2006, Rudy; his son, Carson; and his wife, Laura, were the lead instructors and conservation specialists for the Field School at Mt. Lebanon Shaker Village, where the 1838 timber frame grainery was restored. In July and August 2008, Rudy and Laura directed and instructed a field school in the Holy Cross historic district in New Orleans in collaboration with the University of Florida and the World Monuments Fund.
Rudy studied structural engineering at both the General Motors Institute in Flint, MI, and Akron University in Ohio. He has also studied historic compound roof layout and computer modeling at the Gewerbe Akademie in Rotweil, Germany. He is an adjunct professor at Palomar College in San Marcos, CA, and an approved workshop instructor for the Timber Framers Guild.
