Historic Green participants had a special opportunity to learn from a master: Rudy Christian, Executive Director of the Preservation Trades Network (PTN), an organization already quite familiar with the Holy Cross Neighborhood and committed to preserving its historic architecture. Rudy, from Burbank, Ohio, came to NOLA at the invitation of event organizers to share his experience and wisdom in restoring and protecting the flood-damaged homes of the Lower 9 – like the shotgun at 5116 Dauphine, one of the project sites.
Rudy enjoyed his return to Holy Cross, site of PTN’s annual workshop in October 2006. A timber framer by trade, he was given the organization’s highest honor a few years ago for excellence in the field of historic preservation. He’s also a founding member and immediate past president of the Timber Framers Guild and a founding member and past vice-president of PTN.
Standing on that porch yesterday, Rudy’s words inspired the students and young professionals who had also traveled here from around the country. He was featured a few years back in a Smithsonian publication, Masters of the Building Arts Activity Guide. In that book, although he was referring to traditional timber framing, Rudy might have been talking about the traditional art and craft of constructing homes like those found today in Holy Cross:
“All the old teachers were gone. The lessons came from old buildings. The people that did the work back then, when you look at those old buildings, they were masters. No question about it.”
