Central Maine’s Architectural History

In this 10 week course you will  learn about 250 years of Maine architecture, and maybe learn something about YOUR house! Dan Mitchell is a restoration-minded carpenter who lives in Sidney. This course hopes to develop an appreciation for our local, vernacular architecture while at the same time making connections to broad architectural themes. Also, learn how to be an advocate for historic preservation. This class will be five weeks of presentations (with five weeks of field trips) covering five major architectural periods (18th Century, Federal, Greek Revival, Victorian, and Modern), but students are greatly encouraged to enhance the class with experiences from their own homes. Student photos can be integrated into the slide presentations and students are encouraged to share their own old house stories or problems. There will be slides of MANY local, central Maine examples (over 500), numerous hands-on artifacts (including vintage prints, periodicals, stereoviews, tools, and books), as well as, general discussions of methods of construction, technology changes, style changes, and the ideas behind them. Also, we’ll cover topics of restoration and historic preservation, as well as how to solve common old house problems.  On alternating weeks the class will visit two locales in the greater Augusta area that pertain to the previous classwork. Classroom