An Italian researcher explains to a Slovak forester and a British carpenter how selecting certain grain patterns for wooden roof tiles makes them more effective at shedding water. |
The first action of PARABOW was in May 1998 when the full team met for a plenary session in the beautiful Slovakian medieval town of Levoca, a UNESCO designated centre with the worlds oldest carved wooden alter piece. The first two days were dedicated to the formation of teams, as follows...
Each participating organisation was to provide a carpenter with the exception of the Italian partner, Instituto per la Ricerca sul Legno of Florence who were to act as the research body with PARABOW and in support of the other partners.
An Italian researcher explains to a Slovak forester and a British carpenter how selecting certain grain patterns for wooden roof tiles makes them more effective at shedding water. |
The selected carpenter / woodworker delegates from the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Finland and Denmark were present in Levoca and began to get to know each other; this was important because they were to live and train together to gain all those skills specific to each country in terms of ancient wood working. With these skills they were to form a cohesive team for the construction of ancient wooden buildings. Input from the carpenters is important for the production of the workers manual on re-construction and preservation techniques.
This team is charged with production of the CD-Rom but as a natural development, they have started to produce an INTERNET page, http://www.sazp.sk/parabow/index.html. This page informs people about PARABOW, it is a first rate dissemination tool and will carry news items and general interest features as well as details about actions undertaken in the project. In order to create the CD-Rom it is necessary to select a range of ancient wooden building to feature in a 'strip away', 'build' format.
The members of this team are responsible for the day to day management of businesses, whether they are foresters, log house builders or tourism providers. They are necessarily decision makers and might be expected to be innovative, entrepreneurial and lateral thinking. In some respects they are the 'think-tank' of PARABOW and they are expected to forge new links and extend the partnership network.
These are teachers, trainers and those generally involved in education. They are charged with creating the study modules that will be offered to a variety of training and education organisations. The workers manual will also be constructed by this team. They include people experienced in international education, this is important because there should be parity across Europe and their outputs should be useful in countries other than their own.
This is a small team of scientists, they are wood technologists and archaeologists and their job is to ensure that the truth emerges from excavations and studies of existing buildings. It is only from an accurate base that good re-construction can be undertaken. If data is proved to be historically correct it engenders greater interest from observers and wins the support of academic bodies. It is important to the partners that PARABOW gains the respect of all those who hear and read about it.
Throughout the plenary session in Slovakia, the individual team members got to know each other and planned the detail of their future working interactions together. Certain rules were agreed upon, i.e.:
Once the teams were determined and the
project rules discussed and accepted it was necessary to agree timetables for
action. This was done as far as possible within the teams and was a matter of
balancing existing commitments, periods where other factors were known to
impinge, i.e., busy times for tourist visitors or traditionally busy periods
within forest operations, weather conditions (particularly for Iceland and
Finland), times when important third parties not directly involved in PARABOW
would be available for inputting and times were travel could be undertaken
economically.
As a very important part of PARABOW, the multi-national, multi-team personnel of the project then spent the rest of the plenary session studying ancient wooden architecture together within this fascinating and culturally diverse Eastern European state. The group visited the UNESCO mountain village of Vilcolinec, the outdoor museum of wooden architecture at Zuberec, the medieval churches of Hronsek, Hervartov (with the world famous medieval frescos) and Paludza, the watermill at Oblazy in the Kvacianska dolina, the foresters village near Donavaly and the mining town of Spania Dolina. Of particular interest was the horselogging school near Muran, the group agreed that the process of using timber was also important as well as the physical structures, thus the use of horses for timber extraction, practised since the bronze age, was important, as was the practice of silviculture. Also leaving a lasting impression was the method used to take logs down from mountain forests to early population centres, in many valleys, the 'parallel log floors' laid along the stream beds to make floating of timber easier were still to be seen, preserved by constant passage of clear mountain water. The environmentally sustainable nature of wood utilisation was explored through visits to the National Parks of the High Tatras and Muranska Planina. Also on the environmental front, the Danish contingent were delighted to see the yew trees (Taxus baccata) in protected forest near Banska Bystrica. At their Viking Centre in Ribe they reconstruct Viking age longbows (from yew timber) for use in re-enactments and they were interested to see the quality and quantity of yew in Slovakia.
The 18th Century church at Hronsek is built entirely without metal. |