Reading, MA, House c. 1795, Part 1: Window Placement

In 2009,  I was asked to replicate the entrance in this photograph. The  house in Reading, Massachusetts, c. 1795, had lost the original front door, fanlight, columns and architrave in the 1950's.

I found then that the regulating lines of the house told me what the dimensions of the entrance should be and determined the curve of the fanlight.

Recently I realized I had not looked at the placement of the windows in this house. I wondered if the proportions here would match those of the Locke Tavern.
The basic pattern is similar: a square on each side of the front door, the entry dimension determined by the diagonal ( the Root 2 Rectangle). The windows for both houses are balanced around the center of the squares. Did the master carpenters, the house wrights, use the same regulating lines?

Not quite. The Locke Tavern elevation shows the diagonal and the arc marking the center line for the windows. The Reading house elevation shows that the intersection of those lines - 'a' in red on the left side  - doesn't seem to mark anything.

However, the square divided in half -'b' in green on the left side - determines the top of the windows.
The right side shows the large square divided into 4, the length of the side of the smaller squares laid out as an arc,
The intersection of the two falls is the vertical center line for the width of the windows - 'c' in green on the right side. Then notice how the horizontal center line - 'd' in green on the right side - determines the center line for the height of the windows, both on the first and second floors.

The settlers in Reading came from Berkshire, England. They named their new town after Berkshire's county seat.The settlers in Andover, 10 miles north and the location of the Locke Tavern, came from Hampshire, England, the county next door to Berkshire. Did they have different framing traditions? Could the house wrights have come from other parts of England and been trained in other layout methods? Or did the method for designing the 1740 elevation in Andover evolve over 55 years to produce the elevation in Reading in 1795?

I inch along with this...finding the lines for one building, then finding the next building uses the geometry differently. I think I've solved a riddle, but discover another. I have deliberately focused on  designing (layout), not framing - although I am quite sure they are intertwined.
I do trust my eye. I feel the proportions. When I find the lines that validate that feeling I laugh! Joy!  I post so that others can see the ideas and continue the exploration.

To read more about that design see my '1795 House' posts from late 2009 through early 2010.

12/31/15: I have corrected my post.
The ratio used here is often referred to as the Root-Two Rectangle as it derives from the diagonal of a square.
I doubt the carpenters laying out this work used that name - it's cumbersome. Unfortunately  we do  not know what they called that ratio or any of the others.

The Locke Tavern - part 3 of 4

The front elevation of the Locke Tavern has 5 windows across on the second floor and 2 on either side of the front door on the first floor.  This is the standard look of a 'Colonial' house. 

So why do I recognize immediately that this is an old house, not a modern reproduction?

Before I began to measure and draw the geometry of these houses, I would have said, "It feels right".  I could have cited the window sizes, the clapboard width, the casings and the corner boards, the space between the top of the windows and the eaves, etc... but I couldn't have discussed the shape.

However, now I also see the proportions of the facade, how the windows were placed symmetrically around the center of  each square side of the house and were set to reinforce that shape.
I have added the lines that show this on the elevation. They are the Regulating Lines for this house.

I have drawn the arcs only on one side - in green - for simplicity - it's getting crowded!




To help explain this here is a square and its diagonal - in blue. The radii of the arcs - in red and green - are the length of the side. The point of intersection is where the arc crosses the diagonal - one side in red, the other in green. The resulting lines - red and green center lines - are the locations for the windows. The ratio between the side (a-a') and its length thus divided (a-b, b-a')  is the Golden Section.

 It still "feels right." Now, however, I follow the rhythms. I see the pattern.
  I can even tell you about it, although maybe not without paper!

The relationships on the side elevation are not pure. While the room  to the left does follow the pattern. The window placement for right square doesn't 'compute'.
The windows are, however, balanced across the length of the wall.


I looked at the floor plan -

The placement of the windows on the front of the house - to the right -  so clear in the proportions of the elevations, is not echoed the floor plan - none of the windows line up with the proportions of the plan. The west windows - lower right room - are clearly determined by the diagonals: the room has balance. But those in the back - left - room: one does, one doesn't.

I wonder if perhaps the 2 squares which make up the plan were mainly used to determine the foundation, the center of the support for the fireplaces and chimneys, but not the framing or the window layout.


As a check, I laid out the geometry on the 1/4"=1'0" measured drawings for this house. The proportions remain just as clear.  
Please remember when you look at the drawings that exterior shutters were not in use in New England until after the 1820's. They are an addition  - not part of the original design.  

Locke Tavern geometry, part 2 of 4

The geometry of the Locke Tavern is based on the square, but it is interesting to see how the circle that fits around the square was used.


On the front facade, I have labeled the circles 'c' . The length of half the diagonal is the radius of the circle. The edge of the circle determines the space between the two squares, how the squares relate to each other. It is also where the front door is.
The men who updated the house in the 1790's clearly recognized the original pattern: they worked with it, using the square's diagonal to determine the size of their additions.

This is not design based on the 6 part geometry of the Daisy Wheel. The layout may have begun with a circle, but its use seems subservient to the square.
We know that house-wrights brought their knowledge with them from not just the 'old country' but specifically from their old neighborhood. And they passed their way of building on to their apprentices. Differences based on the origin of the colonists are visible in timber framing, barn and house layout. They are also visible in little things, like the shape of trunnels - the wood pegs that hold mortise and tendons together. Is this another regional variation?




On the floor plan the arc of the square -marked 'c' - of the smaller room to the left includes the chimney stack.

So, is that fireplace part of the 1740 house?
The room needed heat. But in cold New England fireplaces were never built outside the frame, even in half houses, where the second part came later.
Was there a little entry to the left, since enlarged?

I doubt this room was part of an earlier house (that the front is a newer wing) as it lacks southern orientation.

All this, of course, makes me wish I knew more about the construction of that part of the house and its foundation.
Ah, the joy of being present when things are taken apart!

Locke Tavern geometry, part 1 of 4

Here is the Locke Tavern, Andover, MA.
It is thought to have been built about 1740, maybe before 1700, expanded about 1790. George Washington stopped for breakfast here on his Farewell Tour.

For more history: http://www.mhl.org/historicpreservation/detail.htm?ID=422


The measured drawing is the first floor plan of the original 1740 house: 3 main rooms with a center chimney, and a rear lean-to. I show here the way I believe the 1740 house was laid out: in three squares - drawn in red. It is a very straight forward design.
The room shown by the blue squares - shown by their diagonals and marked 'b' - may have had a salt box roof on that side with a third fireplace leaning against the main stack. It has no basement. Many similar houses have basements only under their front section. Back sheds like this regularly morphed into living spaces.

The house reflects what I see here. The moldings and framing, the low ceiling, central chimney, front stair, the tight space between the roof and the second floor windows, are typical of 1740 construction north of Boston. The small rear space has been upgraded many times. As the house is repaired more information may be uncovered. If so I will add it here.

The basement follows the original footprint. The stone work under the wing - the smaller square to the left - is part of the original house. The only concern for me is that the fireplace in that room and its chimney are outside the shape. Why?

The  elevations show the same pattern - squares for the 1740 layout - the diagonals marked 'a'. The squares leave space  for the front door. I thought a square with sides the same length as in the floor plan might be used for the height, but that length doesn't work.
How was the size for the new 1790 front entry determined? The diagonal of the square was extended on both squares. The space between them gave the width of the entry. For clarity I have drawn only one (marked in blue with 'b'). The dimensions across the base, marked 'a-a' and 'b-b', are the Golden Section. I find myself delighted to see that the additions were proportional to the original design.

The 1790 improvements included changing the roof  to a hip from a gable. The chimney stayed where it was, of course. The ridge which needs to be in the center of the roof  moved from in front of the chimney stack to behind it.
The front entrance and side entrances with  classic columns and pediments, the rear rooms (second floor) were added.  Larger windows replaced the originals - inside they feel almost too big for the rooms.


Here on the side elevation the squares - in red - and the diagonal - 'b' in blue, left - determine the size of  the entry and back closets, maybe the fireplace as well. I have drawn in an arc - 'b', right - determined by the center of the square which includes the depth of the front entry. For me this dimension is problematic: I've not encountered its use on other houses.

The rear wing - not shown - is one part later addition, one part building moved to the site. The proportions aren't the same. It has also been greatly remodeled which is common with many houses built before central heating and plumbing.

Eagle Square Manufacturing Co. - a history

 The University of Vermont holds in its collection the records for the Eagle Square Company of Shaftsbury, VT.  It is now digitized and available to researchers.

http://cdi.uvm.edu/findingaids/collection/eaglesquare.ead.xml

Its first paragraph clearly states that Silas Hawes was not the inventor of carpenter squares. Good. We need to lay that myth to rest.


When I became curious about what tools were used for the layout of buildings in the British Colonies and the early United States, information about them seemed non-existent.  It was hard even to find what library might be a place for me to go to research, if I had been free to go traveling for a week. I found a few cabinet maker's tool boxes: the Bennington Museum owns one. But it was not easy to find lists of  tools a master carpenter would have owned. It still isn't.

Information about the history of carpenter squares was part of what I wanted to know about. I still do. They were widely manufactured here, and  40 early squares are stored in the vaults of the Bennington Museum. But there is no repository of information about their use or popularity, just local stories like the one that says Hawes invented the squares.

So I am posting what resources I find here.

7/6/17: update. I have been reading Joseph Moxon's 1683 book which includes descriptions of tools and how to use them, carpenter squares among them. For more information read: http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2017/06/joseph-moxon-mechanick-exercises-london.html

Scribe Rule to Square Rule and Carpenter Squares

Here is a post on Will Traux's blog about the rapid transition from the use of Scribe to Square Rule in Timber Framing. (He explains what those different rules mean.) The comments are an important part of the discussion.

http://bridgewright.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/a-now-two-century-old-overnight-turn-on-a-paradigm/

I have also seen  the rapid change from one system to the other starting around 1820.

I thought this could partially explain why accurate carpenter squares became so popular after 1820, why so many mills sprung up along Paran Creek in North Bennington and Shaftsbury, Vermont, to manufacture the squares, why after being wiped out by the disastrous flood in 1852, the factories were quickly rebuilt.

The comments to the original post discuss the need for standardized dimensions when using the Square Rule system. I think they make a good argument that standard measurements were not essential.

So I haven't a answer, yet.

carpenter squares in 1503

Here are carpenter squares in use in the early 16th century in Germany.

The print comes from Robert Lawlor's Sacred Geometry, Philosophy and Practice, p. 7. The wood cut by Gregor Riesch is from his book Margarita Philosophical, published in Baden,1503. Lawlor's description reads:

"Geometry as a contemplative practice is personified by an elegant and refined woman, for geometry functions as an intuitive, synthesizing, creative yet exact activity of mind associated with the feminine principle. But when these geometric laws come to be applied in the technology of daily life they are represented by the rational masculine principle: contemplative geometry is transformed into practical geometry."

I add this to the posts on carpenter squares, geometry, and regulating lines to follow up on some ideas I'm thinking about.

a) Carpenter squares were in regular use centuries before Silas Hawes of Shaftsbury, Vermont, made his first steel square in 1815, beginning what became The Eagle Square Co. Local lore wants Hawes to be the inventor of the carpenter square, but it isn't so.

b)The practice of geometry has since its beginning been an intellectual, philosophical process - 'contemplative' in the words of Lawlor - as well as a practical skill called Practical Geometry.

c) The intertwining of design - contemplative and theoretical  - and practice in construction unraveled during the Industrial Revolution. As the master-carpenter and master-mason evolved into the separate professions of architect, engineer, and builder each lost parts of the knowledge and skills, as well as the understanding and appreciation of what the others was doing.

d) Notes added 1/7/2019:
The woodcut is a wonderful window into geometry, crafts, tools, even education in late Middle Ages.
The woman is using a compass,  a tool that historians often overlook.
The famous Geometers (Google it!) were men - some of our best thinkers: Plato, Archimedes, Pythagoras, etc., not 'contemplative' nor 'feminine' as Robert Lawlor writes. I would describe them excellent, theoretical, logical, careful thinkers who also understood how to use Geometry for Practical purposes..
The word 'feminine' has little relevance in a discussion about Theoretical and Practical Geometry.