Learning in Stages

Yesterday, we continued to learn how to document buildings from expert Ed Chappell. This time, the group project was to measure and then draw an elevation of Barry Pittman's fish stage. Since an elevation is a representation of the complete view of one side of a building, creating one involved a great deal of exploring the stage in order to get the correct measurements and drawing on paper, from banding together to measure beams from a precarious floating dock to crawling underneath the stage to fill in all of the rocks that form part of the foundation that keeps the stage above water.

Barry Pittman's stage. Photo by Klara Nichter.

Ed Chappell, Wang Xuan, Christine Blythe, and Kayla Carroll work on measuring the stage. Photo by Klara Nichter.

The reason that we should still learn to draw an elevation of a building rather than just take a picture of the same view, we learned, is that measuring and drawing the building leads to a greater understanding of it. As I scooted slowly along the edge of the fish stage, shepherding the tape measure from pole to pole, I began to experience the difference myself. I had taken photographs of the stage, but it was not until I was on the stage to measure it that I really stopped to consider the distinctive nature of this structure. The striking combination of the poles at the front of the stage, fashioned from logs still rough with bark, and the smooth boards of the deck where I worked led me to reflect on the particular makeup of the fish stage, a new structure that mirrors past stages in Quidi Vidi due to its construction using the traditional design. Though there are many new buildings in the village, the old ways appear to be alive and well right alongside them in the form of stages such as the one we documented.

The front of Barry Pittman's stage. Photo by Klara Nichter.

If Walls Could Talk

Monday we began the section of the field school on vernacular architecture.  Ed Chappell, an architectural historian who works at Colonial Williamsburg, is our guest lecturer and has been teaching us how to draw architectural floor plans. During the past three days we have learned the techniques used to draw floor plans and have spent several hours discussing their utility. I’ll have to admit, as someone who was drawn to folklore, almost exclusively, on her own obsession for people and their stories, architecture fell somewhere on the scale between mildly interesting and hardly interesting at all. While historic buildings possessed a certain aesthetic and historical significance that I found fascinating my interest was grounded in the people who lived there, rather than the structural artifact itself.

 However, yesterday, as we stood in the Mallard home mapping out its dimensions, meticulously examining the wood, carefully estimating the approximate location of relics now absent, I realized that this home and these vestiges of the past told a story, a very intimate story about the residents who once lived there. The ropes and rags that peak through the wooden panels snuggly positioned along the wall, the remnants of a small lobby roughly etched into the wood, the special elements of the room, and the methodically placed windows all collectively illuminated the past experiences, technologies, and even daily flow of life for the residents who once inhabited the Mallard home. 

There is the saying “if these walls could talk…” well I am beginning to think that they do, but we need special skills to make their voices audible. (And after today, I'm realizing it takes a lot of work to make them audible.)

Ed Chappell sketching the outer
walls of the Mallard Cottage

Beam on North wall of Mallard Cottage

Artistic shot of the window, roof, beams, and lighting
fixture in the Mallard Cottage

Ed Chappell drawing floor plan

Christine Blythe's feet on original wood floor
in the Mallard Cottage

Buildings, Memories, and Tradition

On Monday afternoon, Anne Barnes chatted with John LaDuke and I about how Quidi Vidi has changed over the years. One site across from her house has gone from fish plant to restaurant to vacant building. Another has become the Quidi Vidi Village Plantation building, where field school classes take place and tourists seem to flow constantly in and out throughout the day as they explore the village. The number of residents is also increasing as Quidi Vidi becomes known as much for its beautiful views now as it was for its fishing industry in the past.

Later that afternoon, Ed Chappell, the director of architecture and archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, led us on a tour of Quidi Vidi's architecture. When we arrived at the Hennebury house, which may have been built as early as 1749, we found surprisingly little physical evidence of its history. The structure of the original house remains, but vinyl siding now covers the exterior while modern walls inside mask the original exposed timber. The house's past was not lost, however, as Eric Sneilgrove was able to tell us about the house's construction prior to its renovations in great detail. The root cellar might now be part of a modern a basement, for instance, but Sneilgrove told us how this basement space used to serve as the original cellar and housing for a pony.

Eric Sneilgrove shows us the house's original root cellar (through the blue door). Photo by Klara Nichter.

Ed Chappell points out the details of the basement wall. Photo by Klara Nichter.

When we continued on our tour, we found more evidence of residents' preservation of Quidi Vidi's historic architecture. Although Mallard Cottage, another of the village's earliest buildings, no longer features solely historic architecture either, its owner is in the process of reconstructing it as faithfully as possible to its original design. Likewise, local heritage carpenter Aiden Duff is currently working on restoring his home, originally the village church. Items such as the materials and bright red paint used to construct the new church steeple might be new, but the resulting structure mirrors the original architecture of the church.

Aiden Duff's workshop (red building) and home (the church).Photo by Klara Nichter.

By the end of the tour, it was apparent that although Quidi Vidi is changing in many ways, its residents are also taking steps to preserve its heritage. Whether through the memories of those who inhabit its historic structures or through the reconstruction of the buildings themselves, Quidi Vidi's history lives on alongside its new developments.