Builder

“ Equally so was it with the art of building—a living allegory in which man imitated in miniature [155] the world-temple, and sought by every device to discover the secret of its stability. Already we have shown how, from earliest times, the simple symbols of the builder became a part of the very life of humanity, giving shape to its thought, its faith, its dream. ”

“ Hours and days turned into weeks and months as Builder taught his people what feeble knowledge he possessed in arithmetic, simple engineering--such as the dam--and most of all, instilling in them the will to want to learn and investigate and question anything they came in contact with--even the very thing he was asking them to do. ”

“ The modern builder, like the frugal binder, leaves the sides of his creations unadorned, and expends his ingenuity in decorating the narrow strip which he naively imagines will be the only part seen, calmly ignoring the fact that on glancing up or down a street the sides of houses are what we see first. ”

“ But if you have an uncontrollable ambition to possess a wellhead, why not get the local builder to construct one for you, with rubble facing of hits of stone of varying colour, only asking a mason to make a sandstone coping for the rim and carve the edge? ”

“ In designating our paper, we use the word “Builder” in its most extended sense—instancing a house, or other edifice, we regard it from the procurement and preparation of the materials, to the fixing upon its site, and to its full completion for the residence, use, and enjoyment of man, and which includes the making of the design or plan, “breaking” ground, as it is termed ”

“ Sometimes a builder could choose his materials and kind of construction. At other times and places a builder had little or no choice of materials and was limited to using the simplest tools and construction methods. ”

“ The most inexperienced laborers can do all the work of the most elaborate béton construction, excepting only the surface-finishing, and this, with all the other work, can be superintended by one competent, experienced builder. ”

“ The builder will introduce new, more convenient, healthier and prettier substances, and the young architect will become increasingly the intelligent student of novelty. The steam engine, the coal yard, and the tail chimney, and indeed all chimneys, will vanish quietly from our urban landscape. ”

“ The master-builder—bishop, abbot, or mason—seems to have planned only the general arrangement and scheme of the building, leaving the precise form of each detail to be determined as the work advanced, according to the skill and fancy of the artisan to whom it was intrusted. ”

“ We would relieve the Working Builder from a double charge for matter less available to him in practice, as well as from the still greater evil, in many instances, of a dry magazine at home, and a well moistened newspaper at a public-house. We have an eye to the superior household and domestic economy which prevails, and which we would have still more constant in the Builder’s Circle. ”

“ What is wanted on the part of the builder is, a knowledge of sanitary conditions, and a willingness to provide the proper accommodation. The space of ground covered by the dwelling is the same in both cases; the quantity of bricks and mortar need be no greater; and pure air is of the same price as foul air. Light costs nothing. ”

“ A good builder with a reputation to lose shrinks from placing that reputation at the mercy of a pisé-builder, who is not recognised as a tradesman, and in whom, in consequence of this, a builder is likely to have little or no confidence. ”

“ The conditions oppose all preconcerted action, and yet, without chipping or cutting, stone fits stone, and timber fits timber—tenons and mortises, and proportions and dimensions, all corresponding so that when the building is complete it is as perfectly proportioned and as accurately fitted as though it had been all prepared in one workshop and put together in advance as a test. In such circumstances no sane man would doubt that one presiding mind—one architect and master builder—had planned that structure, however many were the quarries and workshops and labourers. ”

“ Nevertheless, in building, so well the hedge as the park oak go all one way, and never so much hath been spent in a hundred years before as is in ten years of our time; for every man almost is a builder, and he that hath bought any small parcel of ground, be it never so little, will not be quiet till he have pulled down the old house (if any were there standing) and set up a new after his own device. ”

“ When it comes to building up better houses, you will remember that paid inspectors are squared by the builders—so that the cement is mud and sand; and the bricks are crumbling clay; and the walls crack, and the floors are shaky. ”

“ There where many centuries have worn away the trace of worldliness and the touch of builders' tools, so that the building itself seems almost to have grown by its own life and strength, you think about the builders and planners of such dignity and splendor more than any thing, after all. ”

“ The builder should also know the various acts, and in particular the acts specially relating to the erection of scaffoldings, hoardings, gantries, shoring and pulling down of old buildings. He should have a thorough knowledge of all materials, their qualifying marks or brands, and the special features of good and bad in each class, their uses and method of use. He should be able to control and manage both the men and materials; and briefly, in a builder, as opposed to an architect, the constructive knowledge should predominate. ”

“ There is not a Builder, nor anyone intending to build or otherwise interested, that can afford to be without it. It is a practical work, and the best, cheapest and most popular book ever issued on Building. ”

“ Thus the builder, considered as cause of the house which he builds, has been generated, i.e., he has acquired the art of building and the proper accessories; and he will be destroyed, i.e., he will lose his art, and its conditions of being exercised. ”

“ They had been built by human hands, and the builders had heads as well as hands. But now that the bricks had fallen, in making up their minds as to what should be done, they proceed with a defined purpose. The architect precedes the builder; the head leads the hand. They build not at random. They first say what they will build, and how. They also resolve once more to beautify their surroundings with trees, and they make their choice. ”

“ Hundreds of dwellings have already been erected on the various plans we have issued during the past year, and many others are in process of construction.
Architects, Builders, and Owners will find this work valuable in furnishing fresh and useful suggestions. All who contemplate building or improving homes, or erecting structures of any kind, have before them in this work an almost endless series of the latest and best examples from which to make selections, thus saving time and money. ”

“ Not only setting up houses or edifices, but, as we have said before, preparing the materials—aye, even to the very question of the planting and the culture of the oak and the pine, on which the future carpenter is to exercise his ingenuity. As to the brick-field, the quarry, the limekiln, the mine, the forest—consider what enters into the composition and completion of a building, what machines and implements are employed in working and preparing the materials, and its erection—what in the furnishing and fittings—what in the garden and other appurtenances. ”

“ I shall be glad to have the friendly criticism of practical builders given in the columns of Carpentry and Building. Any suggestions which may lead to further improvements in the system will be appreciated very much, and due credit will be given to those who suggest them. ”

“ I am building in three places, and am patching up my other houses. I live somewhat more lavishly than I used to do. I am obliged to do so. If I had you with me I should give the builders full swing for a while. ”

“ Thus the active builders go on adding to the width of the structure, and dying by successive relays; working with their little might during their brief existence, and knowing nothing of the great end which is to result from their modest busy lives. ”

“ just as the architect’s plans will end in his drawings if they are not followed up and made real by the builder. ”

“ I am glad to see these tall piles rearing their ornamented fronts on every side of us, even though they are intended for purposes of trade; for every one of them is a reproach to the untasteful structures around it, and an example which future builders must copy, if they do not surpass. ”

“ It is not, however, recommended to agriculturists to become their own architects and builders; therefore to those professionals the elaboration of many technical details which are here purposely omitted or curtailed is left. ”

“ Castles in the air—they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build, too— [looks scornfully at him] —especially for the builders who have a—a dizzy conscience. ”

“ When you built your house you did not employ a man who had only a vague idea of how it was to be constructed, and what it was to be built of. Before your house was finished you had used lumber as your chief material, but you also employed brick, stone, lime, sand, nails, etc. If we examine a house, we find all these materials. If we wish to build another house, we know we must use them in their proper proportions. ”

“ THE BUILDERS All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. ”

“ We have only a year before us, we must therefore not begin till we are certain of not taking false steps; besides, your sister must approve the plan. Let us consider a little; and first let us come to an understanding about the means of construction you decide to adopt. As we are in a hurry we have hardly a choice; we cannot think of building the house with worked stone from top to bottom; that would take too long, and cost too much. We must adopt a method of construction that is simple, and can be rapidly executed. ”

“ Classified according to their construction, factory buildings may be divided into three types, which, for convenience, may be designated as first-, second-, and third-class buildings. A similar division to this is also frequently made by the state or municipal laws for the regulation of the construction of factory buildings.
3. First-Class Buildings.—Buildings of the first class are those in which the walls, floors, columns, girders, beams, partitions, and roofs are of stone, brick, terra cotta, concrete, steel, iron, and such other fireproof materials as have been proven to be efficient. ”

“ Strength and Rigidity.
Building in its modern development owes as much to improvement in form as to the use of stronger materials, brick instead of clay, iron and steel instead of wood. A stick as cut from a tree makes a capital tent-pole, and will serve just as well to sustain the roof of a cabin. For structures so low and light it is not worth while to change the shape of a stick. By way of contrast let us glance at an office building of twenty-five stories, or the main piers of the new Quebec Bridge rising 330 feet above their copings. ”

“ A family living in an old house, on unhealthy ground, with water in the cellar, a crumbling foundation, the beams like sponge, the roof leaking, the chimney full of cracks, would not spend large sums of money year after year, generation after generation, in patching up the old house on the same old spot, but with ordinary wisdom and economy, they would build anew, on higher ground, with strong foundations, sound timber, substantial chimneys, and solid roofing. ”

“ The bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, plasterers, and painters all follow in their order, together with their helpers, and the work is completed in an incredibly short space of time. On the mission field all this usually falls to the lot of one man, from the blasting out of the stone for the foundation and the brickmaking [132] until the building is completed. He is mason, bricklayer, carpenter, plumber, plasterer, all in one. That one often is not a trained mechanic, or even a practical one, but many times he comes direct from the farm, schoolroom, or pulpit. ”

“ In the various designs which we present our readers in this volume, nearly all of which have been erected under our superintendence, and are now in operation, the manner of construction can be judiciously economical, or it may be elaborated to the most substantial and ornamental structures of the class to which they belong. There is no more reason for making these buildings of a temporary character, than there is for putting up our barns and other outbuildings in a cheap and unworkmanlike manner. ”

“ The most economical building material we have here now is cement blocks, which are easily made with a little instruction, and we are sending around instructors to show the farmers how to utilize their spare time in the winter in making a sufficient number of blocks of this artificial stone to build the walls of a house in the spring. The neighbors can then get together and help each other put them in place under the direction of the instructor of the society, just as your pioneers in America used to help each other put up their log cabins. ”

“ Worth attention, however, and admiration too, is the solidity of construction by which the huge mass of building, doubly heavy from the ponderous machinery it contains, besides its clustering group of out-houses, megass-sheds, tall chimneys, store-places, and the rest, is enabled to support itself upright and unyielding on a soil so marshy and unstable. ”

“ In the general and usual practice of developing land at the present day, the owner or freeholder of the land first consults an architect and states his intentions of building, the size of what he requires, what it is to be used for, if for trade how many hands he intends to employ, and the Procedure for an intended building.sub-buildings and departments, &c., that will be wanted. The architect gathers as much information as he can as to his client’s requirements, and from this information prepares his sketches. ”