Christian & Son, Inc., President
Rudy R. Christian is a founding member and past president of the Timber Framers Guild, founding member and past president of Friends of Ohio Barns, founding member and past Executive Director of the Preservation Trades Network, and founding member of the Traditional Timber Frame Research and Advisory Group and the International Trades Education Initiative. His experience includes national and international speaking engagements and instructing educational workshops as well as the publication of various articles about historic conservation. In November 2000, the Preservation Trades Network awarded Rudy the Askins Achievement Award for excellence in the field of historic preservation.
Rudy’s professional experience as President of Christian & Son, Inc., includes the reconstruction of the historic “Big Barn” at Malabar Farm State Park near Mansfield, Ohio, and the relocation of the 19th century Crawford Horse Barn in Newark, Ohio. These projects featured “hand raisings” which were open to the public and attracted a total of 130,000 interested spectators. Christian & Son, Inc. recently restored the 1861 Detroit Farmers Market which is now reconstructed in Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum.
Presentation
A Place for Trades Today
Historic buildings are the product of traditional building technologies. Most of those technologies were based on the use of natural materials. Both the conversion and installation of those materials required traditional skills that are not common in the world of modern construction. The 20th century was a dramatic time of transition for traditional trades. With industrialization well established, the production of synthetic manufactured building materials, which were most often meant to “economize" construction processes, flourished. Builders no longer required skilled tradespeople, whose knowledge of the use of natural materials was of little value in the application and installation of manufactured building material. In effect, the place for trades began to disappear.
The 20th century also saw the birth of the historic preservation movement in the United States. This same need was recognized significantly earlier in England and many European nations. The growing interest in saving our built heritage meant understanding how that was to happen became imperative. The lack of knowledge of the correct materials and skills used in the construction of the buildings of the past was becoming obvious. The need for both soon began to highlight the lack of resources. Even if you could source the correct materials, finding the skilled tradespeople to use them was problematic, and by the time the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was passed, the loss of demand for most traditional trades was more than a generation old. Those skills were not being handed down from one generation to the next.
Less apparent, but just as crucial, was the loss of trades education in public schools. By the 1970s and 80s, shop class was no longer a common part of school curriculums. Shop tools were being auctioned off and by the end of the 20th century, school shops were being converted into computer labs. Effectively the number of students who graduated with trade skills had dwindled to nothing. There was no longer a place for trades in public schools. The same was true among institutions of higher education.
The presentation will delve into the past, present, and future of the place for trades and trades education in modern society