Skip to main content

Building Arts & Traditional Architecture

Celebrate the skilled artisans who create and preserve America’s built environment

The building arts—and the traditional architecture they enable—provide an important link to the past and support a strong sense of local identity. Together with other cultural expressions, they provide a foundation for the shared humanity of communities large and small.

As part of the Center’s focus on cultural sustainability and our longstanding commitment to the building arts, this project helps sustain traditional building crafts and supports new applications of traditional architecture across the United States and around the world.

Our Goals

  • Sustain the traditions of the building crafts by celebrating master artisans and attracting new craftspeople to learn and practice these important trades
  • Educate design and planning professionals about the value of the building arts and traditional architecture
  • Increase understanding of the value of the building arts, historic preservation, and traditional architecture through scholarship, publications, symposia, and public outreach

Explore this page to learn about the building arts, historic preservation, and traditional architecture; the occupational culture among artisans; and opportunities in the field today.

Films & Publications

Video Thumbnail

Good Work:
Masters of the Building Arts

Directed by Marjorie Hunt and Paul Wagner (2017)

Academy Award-winning directors Marjorie Hunt and Paul Wagner reunite for Good Work: Masters of the Building Arts, a film showcasing American artisans in the building trades.

The documentary illustrates the diversity of beautiful and functional works of art, from stained glass to masonry to ironwork and handcarved lettering. Good Work celebrates the importance of American craftsmanship, occupational traditions, the beauty of our built environment, and calls for new generations to do “good work.”

Stream on Amazon
Extra Features on PBS
Video Thumbnail

The Stone Carvers

Directed by Marjorie Hunt and Paul Wagner (1984)

Winner of the 1984 Academy Award for Best Short Documentary, Hunt’s first film documents the skills and knowledge of Italian American master artisans.

The Stone Carvers captures the work and infectious spirit of a small group of highly skilled stone carvers who spent their lives carving sculptures and ornaments for the Washington National Cathedral, a fourteenth-century Gothic-style monument begun in 1907.

Watch on Folkstreams
More Info
The Stone Carvers (Book)

The Stone Carvers: Master Craftsmen of Washington National Cathedral

By Marjorie Hunt (1999)

This book presents the lives and work of two Italian American master stone carvers—Roger Morigi and Vincent Palumbo—who spent decades creating the many sculptures and decorations that embellish the Washington National Cathedral.

Exploring the carvers’ underlying aesthetic attitudes, Hunt reveals the spirit of creativity and mastery that infuses their work. She describes their backgrounds and apprenticeships in Italy, showing how memory and tradition continue to shape their art. Based on nearly two decades of fieldwork and research, this generously illustrated book resounds with the stone carvers’ voices—with their memories, stories, and experiences, their values and ideals.

Order on Amazon

Festival Program

caption
Master blacksmith Philip Simmons shapes a scroll at the 2001 Folklife Festival.
Photo by Harold Dorwin, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Masters of the Building Arts

2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival

From the soaring skyscrapers of New York City to the adobe churches of New Mexico, from the sturdy stone walls of New England to the majestic monuments of the nation’s capital, master craftworkers in the building arts have brought enduring beauty to our built environment.

Learn More

Videos

Articles

more
Against a dusky dark blue sky, the National Cathedral stands blocked by extensive scaffolding and a tall yellow crane.
Restoring a National Treasure, Stone by Stone

By Marjorie Hunt

During the COVID-19 crisis, construction work has been deemed essential by the mayor of Washington, D.C., and Alonso and his crew of skilled masons and carvers are taking every precaution.

A young man fine tunes a cut in a piece of lumber using a hand tool that looks like a wide chisel.
Bridging the Natural and Built Environments: The Work of Timber Framer José Jiménez

By Benedict Cook

José Jiménez began his journey into the world of the building arts by falling in love with places where buildings don’t exist.

Joe Alonso on top of the Washington National Cathedral’s northwest tower. Photo by Matthew Girard
My Journey as a Stone Mason

By Joe Alonso

The defining moment of my career came in 1985 when I came to work at the Washington National Cathedral. I was fortunate to work on the final phase of its construction.

Men and women jump on a wall in progress in a choreographed wall-building dance. Photo by Dawa Drolma
Tibetan Wall-Building Songs

By Dawa Drolma

During the spring and fall high in the Sman shod Valley of Tibet, men carry on a tradition of ramming loose earth into solid walls for temples, homes, and other structures—and singing as they do.

Mutso in Khevsureti, Georgia. Photo by Nana Meparishvili
Traditional Homes of Georgia

By Nana Meparishvili

Due to the diversity of geography, climate, construction materials, customs, and community lifestyles, each of Georgia’s eleven regions has different dwelling architecture.

Nick Benson, a third-generation stone carver and letterer, is the owner and creative director of The John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island. Photo by Tom Pich
Written in Stone: Nick Benson

By Marjorie Hunt

Nick Benson is a third-generation stone carver and letterer who specializes in hand-carved gravestones and elegant architectural lettering for public buildings, memorials, and monuments. 

Timber framers from around the world came together to build and raise a 65 traditional timber frame structure in Penetanguishine, Ontario. Photo by Will Beemer, courtesy the Timber Framers Guild
The Builder’s Art

By Henry Glassie

He moves confidently between chaos and order, transforming natural substances into useful materials, then assembling materials into useful buildings. At his master’s side, and then alone, he designs and builds.

Like many churches in New Mexico towns and villages, the Sagrada Familia Church in Pajarito at Black Mesa, Santa Fe County, has been restored by community and volunteer effort. Photo by Jim Gautier
Adobe

By Alberto D. Parra

Our world is in the midst of a housing crisis. Cities abound with the poor whose need for shelter grows. New Mexico and the American Southwest could very well have found the solution in adobe.

Virtual Presentations

Resource Guide

Collaborating Organizations

Support the Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Cultural Vitality Program, educational outreach, and more.
Support Folklife. Donate Now.

.