Practical Geometry Lesson 4b - The Old First Church

The circle, the daisy wheel, governs the design and frame for the Old First Church.
The circle was often used for the top of the window in the 19th century as well as just for decoration.  

The posts in this series  Lessons 1-7  are :

 https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/04/lessons.html

 https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/04/practical-geometry-lessons-2.html

 https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/04/practical-geometry-lesson-3.html

 https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/04/practical-geometry-lesson-4.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/04/practical-geometry-lesson-4b-old-first.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/06/practical-geometry-lessons-lesson-5.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/06/practical-geometry-lesson-5-addendum.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/08/lesson-6-rule-of-thirds-part-1_21.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/08/lesson-6-rule-of-thirds-part-2-serlio.html

 

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/09/lesson-7-how-to-layout-frame-with-lines.html

The Old First Church Geometry - the Floor Plan - Part 4

 I first wrote about the geometry of the Old First Church in Bennington, Vermont, in September, 2012, focusing on the 2nd floor windows with their round tops.
http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2012/09/geometry-of-old-first-church-bennington.htm

I will not repeat that post and the ones that followed -  just expand upon it here.

As I studied how the church was designed I saw that the window design was the logical extension of the basic design.

This spring the full window design and then the geometry of the floor plan - which had eluded me - became obvious.

The circle geometry which determined the curves in the half round top also determined the size of the window itself and muntin pattern  in the lower section.
The completed circle of the top half intersects with the circle which begins in the lower sash. The circles divided in 4 determine the size
of the window panes.




The panes themselves are not quite square because of the thickness of the frame.

The pattern in the rounded top is made by 7 intersecting circles. The window itself is 2 intersecting circles.

I have called these 'rolling circles' because visually they seem able to roll one way or the other. Perhaps in a church the circles roll toward each other and meet..
It would be fitting symbolism for Old First Church whose covenant says the members hope to " ... become a people whom the Lord hath bound up together... "









Here is this geometry:
looking at the windows in the balcony in the church,

Here is the floor plan, measured and drawn in the 1930's by Denison Bingham Hull, the architect who supervised the church's restoration.

I superimposed a circle with its rectangle marked in red which  matches the circles that define the east interior elevation and the exterior front elevation.










This is what I had not seen before -  how the geometry of the floor layout uses the same forms as the windows. Both are 2 intersecting circles.


The rectangles laid out by the circles determine the size of the sanctuary. The diamond shape where the 2 circles cross, the center of the church,  is the  location of the dome -an acoustic device - a technological tour-de-force in 1805. The narthex fills and over flows the lower quarter of the circle. The depth and width of the front bay is determined by the arc of the circle's perimeter.









Expanding the circles in the way that the window design    'roll'  I saw that Lavius Fillmore, the master builder, did not need divide his circles into daisy wheels to locate columns and determine proportions.


This relationship of one circle to another in a linear (up and down, side to side) pattern rather than relating one circle to the next by moving around the perimeter is seen in all the elevations and plans for the Old First Church.










In the drawing to the left I have added small circles at the intersections of the arcs which mark the lines of the columns, the corners of the front bay and intersect with the perimeters of the circles at the 4 major columns - the black squares - which run from  piers in the basement through the sanctuary into the attic to anchor the trusses which carry the roof and the trusses from which the dome is suspended.

Fillmore need not have drawn a daisy wheel with its 6 petals to refine his design.
He might just have rolled his circles.


In many ways these different approaches to 'basic geometry' - as Asher Benjamin calls it - cross-reference each other. The daisy wheel and the rolling circles are variations of the same proportions.
My 'aha' moment is when I find for one way of working that is clean, simple and 'obvious'.

Here are the earlier posts about the church geometry. Each one was posted when I learned (taught myself) more about how circle geometry can be used for design. Part 1, therefore. is a preliminary understanding.  

Part 3     http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/11/old-first-church-and-daisy-wheel-part-3.html
Part 2     http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/01/old-first-church-and-daisy-wheel-part-2.html
Part 1     http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2013/01/old-first-church-and-daisy-wheel.html

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Jackson, NY, house: the windows and the frame , 3 of 6 posts

Dismantling a house is always exciting.

Renovation reveals parts of the frame, the foundation, the joinery of an old house. But taking it down carefully shows us all of it.

So even though  it was 10*F with a stiff wind, I have been there - for the past week. My fingers froze, my camera refused to work. The timber framers said their battery operated power tools were likewise not inclined to cooperate.  





The newer windows were shorter than the originals.The hole above was filled in with 2 short lengths of clapboard.   








Last week with the clapboard removed, The original window frames were obvious.









Inside the frame was exposed; the rough window opening visible.
Still the 'window' we saw was not the original.












At the top of the opening we could see a new stud scabbed against the old, wider stud. The wider stud stopped at the top of the original window.
 Note the white smudge marks on the sheathing - they are made by the un-fired brick that was used for insulation - nogging - and fire stopping. 







 Bottom of the same window - more white marks on the side of the frame where the brick was under the original window. One of the timber framers, who saw this first, is measuring as I take notes.

I had not expected to see the bottom -  the sill - of the original window higher than the newer one but the evidence was right there. At some windows the cut stud was newer lumber as well.

The newer windows sat a little lower than the old. The height of the old matched the height of the front door.

The posts on each side of the window have the 2nd floor joists mortised into them. These bents - front to back down the length of the house, one each side of each window - frame the house. 

This is how Dutch houses in the Colonies were framed 2 generations before this house was built.  

The picture of the southwest corner shows the post on the left side of the front corner window running from floor to roof, the beam mortised into the post, brick nogging, and cross bracing.

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Note: in the picture of the window (above) an intermediate joist is visible  - centered above the window. It is not mortised into a post. It sits on the plate. There are regular intermediate joists in the floor frame of the 2nd floor.


The link to  the men who took down and repaired this house, Green Mountain Timber Frames:  https://www.greenmountaintimberframes.com .
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Geometry of the Old First Church, Bennington, VT, part 1 of 2

The Old First Church in the Old Center of Bennington, Vermont, was built in 1805. The congregation, needing a new building, hired the master builder/architect Lavius Fillmore of Connecticut. He had already constructed several churches in Connecticut. He built 2 more in Vermont. 

The church as been in use since it was built. It has an active congregation.

I am one of the docents (tour guides) for the church. We open the church during the week for visitors. We answer tourists' questions about church customs in 1805, theology, local and New England history, and sometimes even its architecture. We encourage people to walk around the church and the cemetery.

When there are no visitors I am just in the space. It has wonderful proportions, light, and curves.





One part of the building I have been studying is the window sash pattern. The upper windows are arched:  double hung windows with half circle tops. There are also Palladian windows. Where did the shapes of the curves in the arches come from?



Fillmore had a design in mind. How did he show the carpenter/joiner making the sash how those pointy pieces of glass and the muntins, the wood that holds them in place, were to be fashioned?





The use of circle geometry to determine the regulating architectural lines of buildings was common knowledge in 1800. So I began my exploration with circles.

Here is what I have found:
The top diagram shows the 5 panes of the Palladian windows with their arch. The lower diagram is the simpler 4 pane wide window.


The circle which determines the shape of the half circle arch, also determines the shape of the 'pointy' panes within the arch. The circles come and go in both directions. It is the center half circle which contains the expansion, 'centering' it.
Once I saw that, it was so obvious! I felt as if I had not played with my compass enough when I was little!

I thought I'd try the pattern in the arch over the main front door....

This pattern is more complex. The circle is surrounded by its 6 circles, starting with points on the left and right sides of the circle. The crossing points of the outer circles are centers for the curved segments in the center half circle. The pattern is then repeated starting at the top and the bottom points of the circle, or a 30* shift from the first pattern. The 2 patterns are combined to make the scalloped edge.



Well, what about that 3 leafed  'flower' - 'crown' -  in the center?

 

 

I am not sure. Here is what I can draw in -  the lines are determined by  little circles inside the others. If the circle were full, not a half, there would 6 little circles would fit, so the pattern still comes from a base of 6. But what determines the size of those circles?
I don't know. I do think the answer will be obvious when I find it.

 

 

9/15/2021: See the next post for the geometry as laid out by Laurie Smith.

 

glass for Show and Tell

These items were part of the 'Show and Tell' we assembled for the forum on windows at the Dorset Historical Society in February. Choosing the pieces made me look more carefully.

The first is the piece left over from blowing glass. Today we call it a bulls-eye. It can sometimes be seen in the transoms over front doors in old houses. In the center is the closed-in hole where the molten glass was attached to the pontil - the tube the glass maker blows through. The swirls were caused by twirling the soft glass to thin it out to a plate about 5 ft. across which could then be cut into window panes. This was how glass was made before 1800. This center part was basically waste that someone found a use for.


The second is a reproduction Sandwich glass tumbler c. 1830, made with a 3 piece mold. I tried to photograph it so the light would shine at one of the seams. The use of a bucket to pour the molten glass into a mold instead of blowing up the glass glob on the end of a tube was a major change. Flat glass techniques changed too so window panes could be bigger.



The later goblet - 1880's or so - has a 3 piece base holding a seamless bowl. Wow! Compare the technology involved to mass produce this - buckets that were filled, moved and tipped, molds that closed and opened, machinery that brought the two parts together while they were still mailable - to the simple tool used to blow the bull's eye, the way of making glass for that had been used for centuries.

I also had a piece of window glass, c. 1900, with some waves in it. Extruding glass with a smooth surface was not easily done until around 1940.


Finally, I brought a modern art glass tankard because it showed the molten qualities of glass so well.
And here I was surprised at my response. This is the mug I use at home. Now I saw the air bumbles that mean the glass wasn't as carefully blown as early window glass was. It had the pontil mark - the place where the molten glass was attached to the blowing tube, and I liked seeing how the mug was made. But the piece was heavy, not light and airy. The glass was thick, not clear and delicate. The light shone through the others 'better'. The handle was just a snake, a blob of glass, crude.

I know the glass blower probably chose to make it like this - the nature of molten glass right there to see. But right now, partly because I understand the skills required to create them, I much prefer the other pieces.