I had been on the roof for a while now, I know because the heat from the slate was burning through the soles of my shoes, and the harness digging into my neck didn't help as I struggled with ropes and piles of slate to finish a small area that could easily induce both vertigo and claustrophobia at the same time.
After a few hours in the soggy, hot air that is prevalent this time of year in the Ohio Valley I gleefully retreated to the comfort of air conditioning at full blast as I drove to another job-site. As I made my way across town my body temperature started to drop and my clothes expelled water at the same rate I was sucking it in from a plastic bottle. I kept thinking to myself: "We really have it easy". I'm not a historian and I don't know the specific conditions that workers would have faced on the average urban construction job. I do know that it was hard. I understand what it takes to rig your own platforms, cut everything by hand, haul everything up without hydraulic lifts. All the while working in no-doubt unsafe conditions for next to nothing in wages. Where did they get their motivation to keep going? Was the pride in the finished product enough for them? It makes you wonder how they pulled off the amazing examples of craftsmanship that are still standing for us to enjoy. Furthermore it makes you wonder: With everything working against them how they still did such amazing work. So how is it now that everything we seem to build in the modern era is constructed in a throw-away manner, rarely with attention to detail or quality. We have the luxury of power tools, and heavy machinery. It makes you think: what would they have accomplished with the same tools at their disposal.
So what is stopping us from building with the same level of quality today? Sure, we don't have forrest full of 1st generation timber to pick from anymore. We've exhausted that resource so unfortunately, the middle class will have a hard time affording proper structures that they own independently. Masonry just cost more: It takes more capitol to produce a proper structure in stone. We can still build public buildings, mixed use, and even apartments. Share the cost of the structure, or even subsidize it somehow. Our stimulus and LEED building initiatives should focus on durability, natural materials, repairability, and real value. We would be in a much better place if we started building with traditional materials, methods, patterns, and planning. We could actually do it better than they did in the past. We have every convenience and aid at our disposal with modern power equipment. There's no reason not to take advantage of the tools available to us. It's sad to hear a builder say it can't be done like it used to, because it can. They are scared to learn. Scared to take a risk and do something different. They already know the system, the one that's been in place since the war. And current economic concerns aside, the current system in construction makes a lot of people a lot of money. That's not a bad thing but greed, comfort with the current system, and fear of taking a risk on something completely foreign drives the judgements people get to make about what they build and how it is executed.
Moving away from manufactured building materials is the first step. If a component of a building must be produced through a proprietary manufacturing process it is essentially planned obsolescence. Don't give me a window made of extruded aluminum, sealant, springs, plastic, and a number of other things. A wood sash with single glazing is so elegantly efficient and simple. Furthermore it can be repaired, restored, or even reproduced by a tradesperson with even moderate skills. What about that aluminum window? Can Bubba down the street make that in his garage with a router table and cope-and-stick bit? No.
Building is not rocket science. It's not even that hard to figure out. All of the instructions are written for us in the structures that are still standing today after 200, 300, 400 years. These buildings were not engineered. They were built with folk knowledge. We've had a breakdown of that line of communication and it needs to be re-learned. Rediscovering our folk building knowledge is the next step.
