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Dr Gerard C J Lynch, LCG, Cert Ed, MA (Dist), PhD " In a field where materials and skills are scarce, but increasingly in demand, Gerard Lynch is a key personality and has a major role to play in reviving a building craft which created a significant part of English architecture" Professor John Ashurst, D Arch,RIBA, EASA (Hon) (1990)
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Craft Education and Training - The dilemma |
Gerard is acting as the consultant on the reconstruction of a Jesuit Church in Historic St Mary's City, Maryland. Gerard's vast historic knowledge of his craft's history and his mastery of its traditional skills have made him a key individual in the extensive research that has been undertaken by the experienced American team of top designers and craftsmen, brought together to undertake its reconstruction. Gerard's innate mastery and knowledge of the wide range of traditional techniques that were part of the repertoire of the 17th century Colonial bricklayer or 'Red Mason', have been of immense value to them. As part of his consultancy Gerard has toured many important 17th and early 18th century brick buildings in Maryland and Virginia, with his American hosts, helping them to visualise and understand the buildings, materials, skills and their applications, with a much greater clarity and depth than had previously been possible. Brick Mason and Traditional Oyster shell Lime producer, Jimmy Price, of the Virginia Lime Works, who is the main masonry contractor employed for the reconstruction of St Mary's Church, along with fellow brick mason Gerry Campbell, has just returned to America having spent time with Gerard in his workshop, having invested in learning the skills they will need to faithfully reproduce elements of its construction, such as cutting and rubbing, using the brickaxe for hewing mouldings, colour washing and pencilling and other jointing techniques. John Mesick and Jeffery Baker of Mesick, Cohen, Wilson and Baker Architects, Albany, New York, who are extensively researching and designing the reconstruction have also visited Gerard in his workshop to gain an overview of the craft processes. Gerard introduced all of them to some very important historic brick buildings from a variety of periods, up to the early 18th century, in order to explain the nature of the English masonry materials and historical traditional craft techniques employed in their original construction as a means to help them better understand the traditions from which many of the colonial bricklayers were versed in.
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