Cutters, Carvers & the Cathedral - Hardcover

Ancona, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688120563 ISBN 13: 9780688120566

Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepard, 1995

Synopsis

A tour through the Cathedral of St. John the Divine follows the construction efforts of American, French, and Nigerian workers throughout the last century

About this title

Reviews

Grade 3-6?Despite the intriguing gargoyle on the cover and the word "cathedral" in the title, this is not a book about gothic architecture or about churches. It is about construction. In clear, full-color photographs, Ancona focuses on workers in stone, from the skilled cutters in Indiana who quarry the great blocks of limestone to the masons and carvers who work on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Through a neighborhood apprentice program young men and women from Africa and Latin America, Asia and Europe work under the direction of master carvers and masons on the still-unfinished cathedral. The slim text ends with the information that the building project has been halted due to lack of funding. Since there is no information on the church itself, or on the history of cathedral architecture, this book remains essentially a story of a model training program that no longer exists, a handsomely photographed tribute to a brief experiment in multicultural cooperation.?Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 4-6. Clear, full-color photographs illustrate recent stonework on New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which has been under construction for more than 100 years. Ancona follows the stone from its quarry in Indiana, where workmen drill, blast, hammer, and wedge the limestone out of the earth, to the workshop by the cathedral. There, master masons and carvers teach apprentices from the neighborhood and around the world how to shape, assemble, and carve the stone with tools as modern as the pneumatic drill and as ancient as a mallet and chisel. One of the last paragraphs notes that "Construction on the cathedral has stopped for lack of funding," a bit of a jolt since the text is in present tense until that point. Regardless of the current status of work at St. John the Divine, Ancona gives children a visually appealing introduction to the kinds of stone construction and carving used in building a cathedral. Glossary appended. Carolyn Phelan

Edition details

• Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepard
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0688120563
• ISBN 13: 9780688120566
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32