When Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston, South Carolina, in
1989, its Category 4 winds carried off nearly every roof in town, leaving homes
and businesses to be flooded by torrential rain. Not since the earthquake of
1886 had the city seen such devastation, and as residents set about rebuilding,
they soon realized they had another problem on their hands: a shortage of
artisans trained in skills like masonry, ironwork, and plastering, necessary to
repair the city's famous historic buildings.
These trades had traditionally been passed down by
skilled craftsmen to their sons or apprentices, but that old system had long
since been fading away. "It was a recognition that a generation of
teachers had diminished," says Mayor Joe Riley, who has been in office
since 1975.
The building trades had traditionally been passed down by
skilled craftsmen to their sons or apprentices, but that old system was fading
away.
Charleston would recover from Hugo, but city leaders, newly
appreciative of high-quality craftsmanship, decided that something had to be
done to prevent traditional building arts from disappearing for good. So Riley
and a group of local preservationists worked together to found a college. It
took a while—the first class graduated in 2009—but today the American
College of the Building Arts (ACBA) is the only school in the United
States to offer a bachelor's degree in traditional building trades.
Every student in the college majors in building arts, but
can choose one of six specializations: architectural stone, carpentry, forged
architectural iron, masonry, plasterwork, or timber framing. The college seeks
to combine a traditional liberal arts curriculum with intensive crafts
training, often teaching disciplines like history or math by way of the latter;
for example, history is taught with an architectural history focus.
"The graduate here has learned both the art and the
science of preservation and new construction," says Colby M. Broadwater
III, a retired Army lieutenant general brought in as president in 2008 to apply
some military discipline to the
school's finances. "How to build a business, the drawing and drafting that
underlies all of it … the language, the math that supports the building
functions, the science of why materials fail—all of those things wrapped into a
liberal arts and science education."
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An ACBA team crafts a new plaster ceiling on Sullivan's
Island, South Carolina. From left to right: Daniella Helline, Prof. Patrick
Webb, Jacqueline Urgo, and Alex Joyce (ACBA)
|
Broadwater acknowledges that the college had a rocky
first few years, with budget shortfalls and
administrative upheaval, but its educational program has won wide praise from preservation advocates.
In the long run, he argues, the school's mission is about environmental
conservation as much as it is about historic preservation, since graduates will
be able to sustain careful craftsmanship in an era of aesthetically identical
strip malls and vinyl-clad McMansions.
"Most of the work they're doing is new
construction,” he says. "If you're building new buildings that aren't
designed to be torn down in 50 years, you're not filling up landfills."
The college's current main campus is Charleston's 1802
jail, a handsome, crenellated brick structure where the Confederacy used to
hold Union prisoners during the Civil War. It had been vacant for almost 50
years when administrators bought it in 2000, and over the years, students have
helped rehabilitate it. This year, if all goes as planned, the college will
move into the derelict 1897 Trolley Barn, a much larger space that the city sold to ACBA in November for
a nominal $10.
The symbiotic relationship between the college and its
city extends further than donated real estate.
But the symbiotic relationship between the college and
its city extends further than donated real estate. "Of all the cities that
would have a building college, it makes the most sense that it would be
Charleston," Mayor Riley says, noting that the city was an early locus of
historic preservation. The city also serves as an open classroom for students,
who write case studies of historic structures around town.
"I didn't know much about architecture when I
started school," admits senior James Hess. "But after four years, I
find myself constantly wandering around looking at buildings. This is a
wonderful city for that. You would be hard-pressed to find a place as perfect
as Charleston."
Hess, who doesn't graduate until this spring, already has
three job offers.
Hess is typical of the college's 43 students, whose
average age is 23 and who often come to the college after a previous stint in
higher education. After graduating from high school in Sumter, South Carolina,
Hess followed a path well trodden by smart middle-class kids who aren't sure
what they want to do with their lives—he enrolled in a conventional liberal
arts college.
Four years later, he graduated with a degree in English
and German, along with the certainty that he never wanted to work in an office.
He learned about ACBA through a friend and enrolled the very next semester,
choosing as his major the challenging trade of timber framing.
Hess, who doesn't graduate until this spring, already has
three job offers. Although graduates are in demand, the college has struggled
to attract as many students as it needs for long-term stability. That is in
part because ACBA is still working to gain accreditation from the National
Association of Schools of Art and Design, a lengthy process that Broadwater
hopes will be resolved this year. The next goal, he says, is to grow to about
180 to 200 students, a population that the renovated Trolley Barn will easily
accommodate.
"The Trolley Barn gives them a future," Mayor
Riley says. The city wanted to create an institution that would last, and he's
confident that it will. "We'll continue to support them, but I think
they're on their way."
Source: The
Atlantic City Lab
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