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Show Chapter VI Practical Carpentry: Techniques and Materials If the designing capabilities of the folk architectural process allowed the system to function at the conceptual level, it was nonetheless an understanding of basic building technologies that transformed ideas of correct form into material fact. Through a series of geometrical calculations, early Sanpete Valley house carpenters were able to square corners~ place openings, and determine the length of structural members. A set of traditional techniques was then called upon to work the available materials, whether they were clay, rock, or wood, into actual walls and roofs. This chapter is concerned primarily with documenting the second o~ these building tasks, the actual ways of building houses used in the Sanpete Valley during the 1849-1 890 period. The purpose of this work is first to complete the descriptive examination of the local folk architectural style and then to use this information as a means for running a check on the initial observations made concerning the diversity of the house types themselves . It can be shown that building techniques differed significantly from house to · house here during the early years of settlement, a fact that furnishes further evicence of the absence of a local architectural synthesis. In this way, building technology helps reaffirm the multi-cultural nature of early Mormon society. By the middle years of the nineteenth century, traditional building practices may generally be understood in terms of two operations. 248 The |
