Join us as Travis Olson, University of Wisconsin, explores the farms and barns of North Dakota.This is the third lecture in the National Barn Alliance’s Fall 2025 lecture series and is FREE and open to the general public. One additional lecture will be presented as part of the series in November. Please consider becoming a member of the National Barn Alliance to support these efforts as well as receive notifications and updates (https://www.barnalliance.org/join-us/).
Join us as Katie Andres, Co-Producer of Still Standing: The Barns of J.T. Wells & Sons, walks us through the story of these historic barns and efforts to save them. This is the second lecture in the National Barn Alliance’s Fall 2025 lecture series and is FREE and open to the general public. Two additional lectures will be presented as part of the series in October and November. Please consider becoming a member of the National Barn Alliance to support these efforts as well as receive notifications and updates (https://www.barnalliance.org/join-us/).
Taylor Barnhill of the Appalachian Barn Alliance will present the first lecture in the National Barn Alliances FREE Fall 2025 Virtual Lecture Series entitled “The Barns of Appalachian North Carolina”. The lecture will examine the history, design, and construction of the regions barns. Three additional free lectures will be presented as part of the series in September, October, and November. Please consider becoming a member of the National Barn Alliance to support these efforts as well as receive notifications and updates (https://www.barnalliance.org/join-us/).
The National Barn Alliance is happy to welcome Michael Cuba to its virtual lecture series on June 29, 2024 at 7 pm. Michael’s lecture will explore the science of dendrochronology (tree ring dating) and its applied use for dating and interpreting historic structures. Several case studies will be presented including some prominent projects from overseas. While this science can offer conclusive felling dates for timbers used in building, interpretation and context for this information relies on both documentary and physical evidence. Michael will use examples of recent reconstruction projects of the Dominy House, in East Hampton, NY, and the reconstruction of one of the trusses from the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral that was lost in a fire in 2019, to underscore the importance of documentation in preservation work.
The lecture is free and open to the public and can be accessed via the following link,
Originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Michael Cuba moved to Vermont in the mid 90’s where, as a student in college, he first began to hone his woodworking skills. Michael founded Knobb Hill Joinery, with Seth Kelley, to focus on preservation and restoration timber framing while occasionally designing and cutting new structures. He has spent a great deal of time documenting historic buildings, teaching classes, and demonstrating traditional timber framing methods. After moving back to the Mid-Atlantic, in 2013, he founded Transom HPC and shifted his focus toward dendrochronology work and assessments of historic buildings.
Please join us for the next lecture in a series of presentations led by experienced practitioners across the country in support of barn-preservation education on November 3rd, 2021 at 6 pm EST.
This lecture will be hosted via Zoom and is free to all who register. To register, send an email to RSVPwith your name and location (city/county, state) to info@barnalliance.org by Sunday, October 31st. We will send an email with the details to call or login to all registrants on November 2nd, 2021.
November 3rd: “The English Barn: in America: an Introduction to its Layout and Carpentry”
Presenter: Jack A. Sobon
Common throughout most of the Northeastern United States, the English barn was the standard for barns from the earliest settlements up through the mid-nineteenth century. Mr. Sobon will discuss its origins, its layout and use, and an in-depth look at its carpentry. The intricacies of the older Scribe Rule system of timber layout and cutting brought here from Britain will be explained as well as the newer Square Rule method that replaced it.
Image of Three-Bay, Side-Entrance Barn (Photo: J. Sobon).
The image above is from “Historic American Timber Joinery: A Graphic Guide,” written and illustrated by Jack A. Sobon, and originally published by the Timber Framers Guild (2002; reprinted 2004).
Jack A. Sobon
Mr. Sobon is an architect and builder in Western Massachusetts that specializes in timber-framed buildings, both old and new. Since the late 1970s, he has framed over 50 timber-framed structures using only traditional hand tools and often right from the forest. He has four books to his credit including Historic American Timber Joinery (2002) and Hand Hewn, The Traditions, Tools, and Enduring Beauty of Timber Framing (2019). He is also the author of a five-article series on The English Barn in America published in Timber Framing where he chronicles the construction of a classic three-bay English timber-framed barn using original construction methods.
