In this first of three videos on technology and building, Brent Hull traces how the Industrial Revolution changed not just how buildings are made, but who makes them and what they’re capable of. Drawing on examples from Victorian architecture, 19th-century millwork, and the shift from timber framing to balloon framing, he argues that each wave of labor-saving technology has moved the skilled craftsman further from design and closer to assembly. The argument isn’t anti-technology. It’s a case for balance, and for not losing the old skills just because new machines make them inconvenient. For more, visit Brent's YouTube channel.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

I wanted to talk today about technology and how technology changes building. There’s an irony with technology. As it improves and gets better, our skill and craftsmanship diminishes. I think we’re living in an era today where that is especially true.

I’m always saying we can learn from the past. What I keep pointing to are the columns, the moldings, the layout of those old houses, how they were put together in ways that are so magical and that we’ve largely lost.

The Industrial Revolution and what it did to the craftsman

This is the first of three videos on technology and change, and that change really begins with the Industrial Revolution, somewhere between 1820 and 1860, with the rise of the steam-powered machine.

If you look at pictures of how buildings and building parts changed during that period, or look at what industrialization did to the wood shop, it’s kind of shocking. The Dominic shop was a three-generation family woodworking operation. The space was probably about 600 square feet, about the size of my office. What was produced from that shop by hand, by those craftsmen, compared to our shop today at 25,000 square feet. A lot of that growth is driven by machinery, dust collection, power, and everything else required to make a large production shop work.

Now you have a powered machine making things. But that machine makes the same part over and over again. Think about turning a baluster. You’ve got your knife set up, your lengths pre-cut, and the machine just produces parts. Compare that to a craftsman working by hand with calipers, measuring carefully, making each piece individually. It’s just different.

Think about a molding. In an 1880s house in Granbury, the mantels were handmade. Ten years later, after the railroad came to Granbury, the house has a turned oak quartersawn mantle in the living room, and we know it came in during the 1890s. Once the railroad arrived, the town opened up to products being made in large mills across the country.

The craftsman picking up moldings at the lumber yard is no longer a master builder. He’s no longer a designer determining how something should look. He becomes an assembler, a carpenter, someone who installs. That role shift is the first consequence of industrialization in the trades.

Architecture changes too

The Industrial Revolution didn’t just change craftsmen. It changed architecture itself. You go from timber-framed buildings put together like large pieces of furniture, with mortise-and-tenon joinery and pegs, to balloon-framed buildings nailed together. You go from the rectangular discipline of Greek Revival, Georgian, and Federal architecture to Queen Anne houses with turrets and all kinds of wild ornament. Why? Because technology allowed builders to produce more ornamentation faster.

The Victorian period is really a reflection of that industrial leap that started around 1850. By 1890, the Arts and Crafts proponents were pulling their hair out. The houses were so over-ornamented they were completely out of control. What came next was an architectural reaction, a much more subdued style with less ornament. The technology didn’t just change how things were built. It drove design into excess and then provoked a correction.

What it takes to replicate the past

Walk through the rooms at Winterthur. Walk through the Federal Parlor or one of the great Georgian or Greek Revival rooms. Now imagine a client asks you to build something exactly like that. If a CNC is your primary shop tool, you’re going to be challenged. A lot of those parts will need to be made by hand, hand-carved, not punched out or embossed.

If we’re going to honestly replicate the past, there’s a real challenge in that. The mantles, the turnings, the carvings. Matching them well means having hand tool skills that most shops no longer maintain.

Not anti-technology, but pro-balance

I’m not a Luddite. I’m not anti-technology. We have two CNCs in our shop. I was reluctant to get them, and we inherited the first one when we bought the shop, partly because I know what you can lose in the process when new technology comes in.

What I want is balance. I want to take what’s genuinely useful from CNC and other modern machines, without losing sight of the joinery, the detailing, the old ways of building that work and last. Having a machine that cuts things out faster is not a reason to abandon what came before it.

The Industrial Revolution was the first real knock, and the craftsman became an installer. That’s the first step. The next two videos will cover what came after.

If you’re a craftsman, a designer, an architect, or a homeowner who wants to understand why things look the way they look today, subscribe and follow along. I’m writing about these changes on my Substack as well.