Public history student swaps mobcap for hard hat

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Willowbank students squaring and carving stone.  Photo credit: Juliana Glassco

Willowbank students squaring and carving stone. Photo credit: Juliana Glassco

It is often said that everyone should work in the customer service industry at some point in their lives so that they can understand what it’s like to interact with the world from the other side of the cash register. I feel the same way about traditional building trades. Anyone who works with old buildings should spend at least a few days learning about what it takes to be a carpenter, plasterer, mason, or blacksmith. As a student in a course of study in heritage conservation (called historic preservation in the United States) at Willowbank School, a small private college in southern Ontario, that is precisely what I do.

Willowbank’s curriculum blends hands-on experience with design, heritage management, and theory. Professional craftspeople–and architects, historians, planners, conservators, and others–take time away from their jobs to teach a group of students from diverse backgrounds about their profession. Every day is a lesson in humility and patience. At its heart, being a student here is about cultivating respect for the many perspectives, skills, and disciplines that interact with “heritage” in all of its varied forms. In studying these points of intersection, we are unlocking potential for cross-disciplinary creativity, communication, and collaboration.

Construction in progress of a new timber frame and dry stone structure, built on site by Willowbank students and professional dry stone wallers. Photo credit: Juliana Glassco

Construction in progress of a new timber frame and dry stone structure, built on site by Willowbank students and professional dry stone wallers. Photo credit: Juliana Glassco

The last time I studied traditional trades, I was an undergraduate public history student at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. Through my coursework and leisure time, I ate, breathed, and slept at the adjacent Colonial Williamsburg, and at the time it was exactly where I wanted to be. One of many highlights was the semester I spent interning at the Millinery Shop, where the tailoring and mantua-making trades are demonstrated to visitors. I loved feeling like one of the privileged few gatekeepers to an experiential version of the past, and I felt passionately about the importance of public history programming.

The trades at Colonial Williamsburg are presented as part of the interpretation of the overall museum–they are educational tools, portrayed as they were at a specific period in time. However, little attention is given to the fact that many people still practice trades–from dress-making to joinery–and they are not all at living history museums. Hand craftsmanship, quality, creativity, and natural materials are valued more than they have been in decades. It is not a coincidence that many traditional buildings and building techniques share these attributes. The methods that have been tested and fine-tuned over centuries, in some cases millennia, appeal to our innate desire for a sense of stability, continuity, and harmony within our built landscape.

When I was a student at Colonial Williamsburg, I was missing so much of the bigger picture. Far from relics, the trades are alive, relevant, and contributing to a future that is ripe with potential for embracing our heritage in insightful and resourceful ways. Now, as a student at Willowbank, I play a role in that potential as I learn how to integrate traditional knowledge and building techniques with contemporary design and sustainable technology. I grapple with how to discard unnecessary delineations between built and natural landscapes. I practice medieval building techniques still in use today, where the builder and the architect are one and the same. I learn how to install rooftop gardens on old buildings. I question both the cookie cutter mentality of the construction industry and purist dogmas that are entrenched in the preservation field.

Mixing lime, water, and sand to make traditional plaster. Plaster has always been mixed with whatever binding materials were cheap and at hand (animal hair, dung, blood, etc.). Sustainability-minded plasterers today are experimenting with re-using aggregates and binders that would otherwise be waste, such as dung and Styrofoam pellets. Photo credit: Juliana Glassco

Mixing lime, water, and sand to make traditional plaster. Plaster has always been mixed with whatever binding materials were cheap and at hand (animal hair, dung, blood, etc.). Sustainability-minded plasterers today are experimenting with re-using aggregates and binders that would otherwise be waste, such as dung and Styrofoam pellets. Photo credit: Juliana Glassco

The truth is that the trades are in demand. Here in Ontario, there are not enough heritage carpenters, window repair specialists, or masons. Historically designated buildings, whether privately or publicly owned, all require the work of knowledgeable tradespeople. Increasingly, engaged and sustainability-minded property owners also turn to the trades. Skilled tradespeople may have as many “new-build” projects as they do projects on existing buildings. There is a growing desire to create new spaces that are distinctly contemporary yet sympathetic with surrounding historic layers. Traditional building techniques are an effective way to achieve this. Contemporary timber frame structures, mosaics, frescos, stained glass windows, and dry stone sculptures are just a few examples of ways that we can see the trades living and evolving with the times.

Some of my classmates will go on to practice a trade professionally, fortified with the theoretical and ethical background that Willowbank provides. Many, including myself, may apply our exposure to the trades less directly. But I have no doubt that the lessons I have learned hands-on from the masters will serve me well. At Willowbank, I have learned:

  • the importance of quality tools and materials, which are increasingly expensive and difficult to find
  • to look at wood, stone, iron, and glass as materials that can be manipulated into beautiful forms
  • to see the rhythm of a mason’s hammer in the chisel marks on a stone
  • that it is often tradespeople who are the most observant and intimately acquainted with local historic building practices
  • the heritage community is small, and the projects, reputations, and relationships that are created follow a person throughout her/his career
  • that the tradesperson’s perspective is too often the last one invited to the table
  • that good heritage conservation is nuanced, thoughtful, and often intensely debated
The author forging and tempering a steel masonry chisel. Photo credit: Katrina Hollingshead

The author forging and tempering a steel masonry chisel. Photo credit: Katrina Hollingshead

I came to Willowbank to study the many ways that people are stewards of heritage and how we can all work together. By studying the trades, I am learning to understand historic buildings themselves, but I am also learning to understand the processes and experiences of the people who built them, the people who are maintaining them today, and the people who want to tap into tradition when building for the future. The education I am getting fundamentally enhances my appreciation of built heritage, but it also enhances my appreciation of the builders. At Willowbank, I am laying the foundations for a career built on respect, collaboration, and creative vision for the future. When I was in costume at Colonial Williamsburg, researching trades in the 18th century, I could never have predicted that today I would be going to class in grungy jeans and steel-toed boots to repair a wood window. But in retrospect, it all makes perfect sense.

~ Juliana Glassco is currently a student at Willowbank School and Centre for Cultural Landscape in Ontario where she is the current Susan Buggey Cultural Landscape Fellow. She is originally from Washington, DC, and has an undergraduate degree in anthropology and French from The College of William and Mary in Virginia. Before returning to school, she worked in non-profit administration for environmental, volunteer service, and international health organizations. She has lived and traveled all over and loves to explore and connect with places. All of these experiences, culminating in her education at Willowbank, have informed and enriched her take on the role of history within communities.

1 comment
  1. cathleen phelan says:

    Really interesting article and such good news that people are teaching and learning how to combine the old and new with ecologically innovative techniques that also incorporate recycling of those strange substances we have in excess. cp

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