Heritage craftsmanship training: lime plaster, timber, tile, the trades the old buildings need

A first step

Find one older craftsman or craftswoman who still knows lime plaster or old timber joinery and ask whether they would teach three young people for a month, paid by the day. Then ask two restoration contractors or villa owners whether they would pay the trainees to work on a real job afterwards. A teacher's yes and a contractor's job is the proof.

Who pays first

A contractor or villa owner who cannot find anyone who knows the old trades and would pay for trained hands on a restoration job.

What leaves today

The trades the old buildings need are dying with their last masters; training keeps the skill, and the restoration work, on the island.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
  Galle Fort, Venice and what heritage funnels do
• Ch. ThreeWhat We Have Already Built
  Geoffrey Bawa's tropical modernism and the Aman resorts

More from cluster 19

• 381A film-location service: crews, permits, fixers and locations, sold to the studios of India and Europe
• 382Documentary production about the island's own stories, sold to the streaming platforms
• 383A museum shop worthy of the museum, at the National Museum, at Anuradhapura, at Galle
• 384Digitisation of the palm-leaf manuscripts and colonial archives as a paid service to the libraries of the world
• 385Architecture tours of Bawa's buildings with the houses opened by their owners
• 386Heritage-building restoration firms with the skills to work on the forts and the villas

All 15 ideas in this cluster