William Pain's 'The Practical Builder' and Lavius Fillmore

 

 Here's the Old First Church, Bennington, Vermont.*

 

In 1803 the church elders invited the Master Builder, Lavius Fillmore, to build a new church in Bennington. He had already built 4 churches in Connecticut. The latest had been included in Asher Benjamin's first pattern book, The Country Builder's Assistant, published in 1797.**                               

Pattern books were architectural guide books for builders. Their images were studied and copied by gentleman scholars and master builders; their instructions studied and followed by apprentices, journey men, and carpenters.

William Pain, in London, had written many pattern books, 8 of which are known to have been available through book sellers and in private libraries in the States. While there is no written record of what pattern books Lavius Fillmore owned or might have seen, I think he must have studied Pain's The Practical Builder, printed in London in 1774.***

 

 

Here is the evidence:

 

 

This engraving, part of Plate XIV, The Practical Builder, explains the proper design for the 'Frontispiece of the Dorick Order'. Note the fanlight tracery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Compare Pain's tracery to that in the fanlight of the Old First Church. 
Fillmore has elaborated upon and refined Pain's design. ****

 

 The columns  however, do not match the illustration of a Doric frontispiece. They are topped by Ionic volutes. 

In this photograph they look like the ends of rolled up paper. Or maybe balls of white yarn?

 

 

This is Pain's 'Frontispiece of the Ionick  Order', part of Plate XVI. 

 

 

 

The volutes match those of the Old First Church.

 On the left side the 'entablature' (the section between the door frame and the roof) also matches that of the church.

 

 

 

Here is Pain's detail of the capital. The right side of the entablature matches the 2 sections, the 'architrave' and 'frieze' of the Old First Church door. 

The volutes on the columns in the church sanctuary also match those on the frontispiece. The columns also have the same architrave, frieze (the top part above the volutes) and the very top part with the dentils - the cornice -  as are shown in the drawing.

Notes:  

*For more about the Old First Church, see the church website: https://oldfirstchurchbenn.org/

** Asher Benjamin's first pattern book is available on line. The original can be read at the Historic Deerfield Library, Deerfield, Massachusetts. We know what books Benjamin studied; he copied their engravings and used them in his own books.

*** William Pain, The Practical Builder, or Workman's General Assistant, I Taylor, London, 1774, Dover Press reprint.

****I have drawn the practical geometry for the fanlight. See: 

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2021/10/geometry-of-old-first-church-fanlight.html 

I also drew the geometry of the church, 10 years ago. It needs to be rewritten, made simpler and clearer.  

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/11/old-first-church-and-daisy-wheel-part-3.html 

The Old First Church Windows in the Lantern

The windows in the lantern of the Old First Church in Bennington, VT, are pretend,  a frame with black paint in between the  muntins. 

This part of the church steeple has a small trap door, 14 ft above the platform, not an easy access. The post which supports the weather vane is in its middle. Repairing broken windows would require scaffolding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look up. Does it matter? Would the effect be different with glass? 

 

 

 

 

 

In the 1980's, the church steeple was repaired. In order to replace the rotted frame the lantern was removed. It sat in front of the church for several months. The photograph shows the lantern, suspended from a crane's hook, being lowered onto a base.

 

 Charles Dewey, a local historian and skilled joiner, created  a wood replica of the false windows' layout for the painters. On it he wrote: "SAVE" and  "template for steeple lantern false windows, 1984 restoration". The template is 33" wide x 72" tall.

This pattern is big enough and simple enough to be a clear, final statement at the very top of the steeple, complimenting the 6 columns, their corbels and capitals, and the lantern's curved dome. 

 

What was the geometry?

 The first diagrams are the pattern used for all the windows in the church*.  The circles are laid out on a line. Every time a circles cross the line it makes 2 points which can define a new circle - one on either side here.  

The next circle crosses the original circle at 2 points,  making a vertical line, bisecting a shape with 2 curved sides - a 'vesica piscis' (Latin for 'fish bladder') and give a new point where the new line cross the center line. The new point can become the center for a new circle.

 

The 2nd floor arched windows and the Palladian windows of the church use half of this pattern for their muntins.

 

 

If the whole circle is used it looks like this.

Here is the center half of the pattern. This is the shape of the 6 faux windows.

 

 

 

 

Note that in the diagram above the red arcs cross the underlying circles twice, at the top and bottom. Given 2 points a straight line can be drawn, crossing  the center line, giving a new center for a circle - or here for arcs which outline 4  smaller vesicae piscis.

 

 

The curves at the bottom and the top of the window frame come from the geometry of the church design, As seen here the chains of circles which govern the plans and elevations of the church are both horizontal and vertical.

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Here are the horizontal circles in my first diagram above turned vertically.

 

 

 

 

 The vertical series laid over the horizontal series of circles with the interior muntin pattern shown.

 

 

4 points marked where the horizontal circles cross, allowing connecting lines to be drawn - light dashed vertical lines which mark the edges of the muntins. The points above mark where the vertical circles cross.

 

 

 

Extend the vertical lines and the horizontal lines so they cross.  The points where they cross are the centers for the circles whose circumferences edge the lantern's vesica piscis faux window.

I have not extended the vertical circles nor drawn the lines for the bottom of the window. It is identical to this pattern. 

 

 

 

Those circles, added here in red, form the lower and upper muntins.

If fully drawn and continued they would add  horizontal chains of circles above and below the original center chain and intersecting that chain.

These patterns were difficult to draw accurately by hand at a small scale.  I plan to lay them out again, full scale, on a framing floor to see how easily they come together.

*Links to those blog posts will be added to this post. 

Geometry of the Old First Church Fanlight - an Addendum

The first post about the design of the fanlight is here: https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2012/12/old-first-church-bennington-part-2.html

Considering the 'leaves' of the fanlight,  those 3 curved petals that fan out from the base of the light: how did Lavius Fillmore, the master builder, and his crew, especially Asa Hyde, the joiner, derive the pattern?

The layout that I drew of the leaves in the last post is too complex.

 

 The church is graceful and direct. 

 

The derivation in the previous post of the leaf pattern is not direct.
The geometry of the church is straight forward. The use of the circle to layout the framing, the design, would have been clear to other people in construction and to the church's congregation, as well as to anyone in that time who was educated beyond grammar school.

      

 

 

And then there's this diagram in my last post: 

I drew the way the scallops on the curve of the light can overlap simply by rotating the circles one half a petal's width around the circumference, or 15*.

It is also the pattern of the leaves, just at a scale too big for the fanlight.

 

 

 

Drawn smaller, the pattern has 3 overlapping circles at its center, across what would be the sill of the fanlight.  Here the circles come first; the leaves come from the pattern; the fanlight, its size and placement, come from the width of those combined circles.   

However, the pattern in the The Old First Church fanlight was laid out knowing the dimensions for the fanlight. The door and its surround, the placement and size of the door in the main elevation, the width and height of the fanlight were determined by the geometry of the building. They were fixed.

So: given the width and height (about 60"w x 30"h)  how were the leaves' sizes determined? 

The 3 circles across the sill were overlapped. If they were 3 in a row the proportions would be 1/1/1. Then the width could be divided into 3 equal parts. Instead the proportions of the circles are 8/6/8, or 22 equal parts.  Dividing a line into 22 segments with a compass and straight edge is complex.

 

The center lines  (faint pencil lines here) of one set of the fanlight's scallops meet at the center of the fanlight  These are the scallops that the leaves point to.

The distance between the scallops and the center of the fanlight is the diameter of the circles that will make the leaves. The first circle crosses the pencil lines and marks the center of the next circles.

The red spots are the centers of the circles.

 

  

The first 3 inner circles. Where they cross each other and the sill they mark the centers of the next circles.

 

The 4 outer circles. The ones that continue below the sill are not completely drawn.  Note that even though the center circle begins the design it was not needed here. It was understood implicitly by the joiner laying out the pattern.

Below is the layout of the leaves with all the circles included. 

 

 

 

Geometry of the Old First Church Fanlight

 

 

This is the fanlight over the main door to the Old First Church, built in 1803-5 in Bennington, Vermont. Lavius Fillmore was the Master Builder; Oliver Abel, his Master Carpenter, and Asa Hyde, the Joiner and carver.  

 The fanlight design consists of 2 parts: the 'scallops' around the curve and the 'leaves' coming up from the base. It is simple, graceful.

How was it laid out? In 2012 - when I first wrote about this fanlight - I knew the geometry for the scallops around the curve - expanded daisy wheels on the horizontal and the vertical axis. 

The 3 leaves below the scallops?  I was lost.

Laurie Smith - English timber framer, historian, geometer, the most knowledgeable person I know about the use of circle geometry in medieval design and construction - provided an answer.
Here was our geometry for the fan light in 2012.  Now, in 2021, I think it is probably not how Lavius Fillmore laid out the pattern. 

I post it because we are teaching ourselves. We are constantly learning more about how to use Practical Geometry (or 'Architectural Geometry'). One solution is not the only one. 

A square can be  derived from a circle in many ways - as can a 3/4/5 rectangle - both done using only a compass, straightedge and a marking tool. To see how the geometry can be followed and bring different designers seeing different paths, arriving at the same solution, is valuable.

 

 

 The  circle, its 6 points around the circumference laid out by the radius of the circle, is set on a line which defines the shape of the fan light.

 

 

The circle is surrounded by 6 circles which have their centers on the 6  points. The center pattern is a daisy wheel with 'petals'.

 The circles expanded.

 

 

This set of circles around the original circle adds petals 
to the exterior of the first circle. Add the fanlight shape and the petals  become scallops around the arc of the fanlight.

 

 

 

 

 Rotate the circles 15*  - or 1/2 a petal - and the fanlight's scallops' locations change.

Overlapped, the daisy petals create the double scallops around the Old First Church fanlight. See the photograph above.

 

 

The overlapped petals are also the pattern of the 'leaves' in the  fanlight: too big, not in the right location, but crossed as are the leaves. 

This pattern is much easier to layout than the geometry in the next 5 drawings. I include those drawings to show another way which is equally valid but more complex. 

However, as I have explored the Old First Church geometry over the past 10 years,  I have gained a sense of how Lavius Fillmore designed. I do not think he used the sequences laid out here. He understood what the simple act of turning an expanded circle on its axis could create. 

The simple solution is here :

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2021/10/geometry-of-old-first-church-fanlight.html 

 

 

Here is how the leaves could have been added. These steps are our 2012 solution.

Add regulating lines from the center of the circles to the second ring of circles and center lines in the petals.

 

Connect the center points of the scallops to each other. Where they cross the petals is the center of the small circles which form the leaves. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The radius of the circles is the distance from the center of the petal to the scallop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've drawn it in red to make it more visible. It is a complex layout for a seemly quiet, unassuming design.

This pattern was drawn at about 3/8" = 1'-0".  A scale of 1"=1'0" might have been easier. However it would still be tiny here on the page. For clarity I left out the overlapping scallops.

 

 

my drawing in 2012:

The real fanlight was laid out full scale - 5+ feet across -  on a framing table or floor. The proposed design sketch would have been studied, the arcs drawn with a compass using chalk or charcoal, the lines checked, redrawn, the points pinned.  Finally, when the regulating lines were erased, the simple, clean design was visible.

I would like to have been there, listening, watching. as the men drew this.  I think they were pleased as they derived the pattern and settled on a design.  It's not structural at all. It's one of the first things you see, an introduction to the church. It's also their signature.

Then -  I realized that this derivation is not simple enough. 

My Addendum, my next post, is my current solution, my current understanding of how Lavius Fillmore, Oliver Abel, and Asa Hyde designed the fanlight. 

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2021/10/geometry-of-old-first-church-fanlight.html

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