Traditional Masonry Archives — International Spotlight: Masonry in Transylvania

The village of Copsa Mare.

International Spotlight: Masonry in Transylvania

Detail of a gothic church in Sibiu.

The Saxon villages of Transylvania, Western Romania, are small, and many of them seem untouched by anything modern. The region was settled in medieval times, and most of the villages have no street names, only house numbers. The people are friendly and often invite you to join them for lunch prepared from organic ingredients that they grow in their own gardens.

Each Saxon village is defended by a fortified church and crossed by a small river while the houses are lined up in straight lines along the main road. The houses have thick walls made of bricks, lime and sand, with wooden shutters, carved wooden doors and colorful facades. The region is unique and immensely charming. But in recent years it suffered profound decline as the modern-day Saxons left the area and took with them almost all of the knowledge of traditional building skills.

Need for help
The International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU) is an international charity that works under the patronage of the Prince of Wales to promote traditional architecture worldwide. INTBAU started to work in the Saxon village of Laslea in 2003 when a good number of houses were decrepit and many local people felt helpless as they had little knowledge of Saxon architecture and maintenance techniques for such buildings.

Students of Timisoara University, Romania, with craftsmen Henry Rumbold and Øivind Eikvam

The local authorities thought that a number of houses — some of them hundreds of years old — would be better demolished as they had no means of repairing them. One of those houses has the number 344. Centrally located, it was once used as a shop, and then as a school. The local authorities had condemned the house and sold it for the value of the materials to a local family. With the family’s help INTBAU managed to persuade the local authorities to cancel the demolition plans and get involved in a community project aiming to save the 344 house and train local people in traditional restoration skills.

The restoration
Saxon Transylvanian architecture is based on simple, classical design and employs traditional materials widely available in the region, such as lime, sand, wood and bricks. With the help of another charity called The Mihai Eminescu Trust, a group of craftsman from the United Kingdom and Romania started the restoration work in September 2004. The main aim of the project was to save the old building, but the team also wanted to provide training for the local community in traditional restoration skills. The volunteers wanted to help locals help themselves so they could learn to preserve the area and maybe provide an income for themselves.

While consolidating the structure of the house and fixing the cracks in the walls, the British craftsman Henry Rumbold brought in many local people as his apprentices. They had little knowledge in restoration to start with, but they offered impressive practical skills. Before long, many were able to undertake small projects on their own. In the meantime, the 344 house was slowly returning to life. The exterior restoration was finalized in September 2006, and most of the work had been done by a group of local masons who learned the skills along the way.

Architecture students on site
The 344 house still needs interior restoration. In 2005 and 2006 the building was used as a working site for architecture students and apprentices interested in learning traditional skills. The need for such courses is immense in Romania as architecture schools teach very little traditional architecture.

In 2006, INTBAU organized a “Summer School” on traditional masonry at the 344 house. Master craftsman Henry Rumbold of the U.K. and Øivind Eikvam of Norway taught masonry techniques to students from three different Romanian architecture schools. Rumbold loves working on traditional sites and has done so for more than 40 years. Rumbold and Eikvam explained to the students the principles on which Saxon houses are built, and why it is vital to use traditional materials in order to preserve their character.

It wasn’t all hard work; it was a lot of fun as well. The students learned about the Saxon area of Transylvania and its unique architecture by travelling to other villages, meeting local people, visiting a local brick factory and seeing for themselves what a lime quarry looks like. The practice sessions were interrupted by short lectures on New Urbanism, SmartCodes and master plans.

The restoration at the house 344 is to be completed in 2007 by local craftsman. Once that happens, the premises will continue to serve the local community by providing further training courses for those who lost their jobs in the industry or simply are keen to pursue a different career. The INTBAU Centre will also be used to promote and support traditional architecture. Most people seem to realize now the heritage they have and think twice about replacing the wooden shutters with the PVC windows.

TM