The American College of Building Arts is located in the downtown Charleston neighborhood of East Central. The ACBA educates and trains artisans in the traditional building arts to foster exceptional craftsmanship and encourage the preservation, enrichment, and understanding of the world’s architectural heritage through a liberal arts education.
This month, we sat down with Leigh Handal, Director of Institutional Advancement at the American College of Building Arts, to learn about the ACBA’s offerings.
How Was the American College of Building Arts Founded?
In 1968, the National Trust for Historic Preservation issued its Whitehill Report, warning of the near extinction of the traditional building trades during the post-World War II building boom, with its emphasis on pre-fabrication and mass-production automation.
The report initially drew limited interest among most. For Charlestonians however, its warnings became very real 21 years later, as they sought to repair and restore their historic properties in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo.
It was clear that America was not producing enough skilled artisans to meet the demand for high-quality repairs and restorations, that the last generation of classically trained artisans was rapidly dying out, and that no one was training the next generation of tradespeople with the skills necessary to preserve, repair and restore our nation’s architecturally and historically significant buildings. This realization led them to found the American College of the Building Arts.
What Programs Are Available?
ACBA offers degrees in six trade specializations:
- Architectural Carpentry
- Blacksmithing
- Classical Architecture and Design
- Plaster
- Stone Carving
- Timber Framing
What Type of Degrees Are Available?
ACBA is the only college in America that offers a four-year Bachelor of Applied Science degree in these artisan trades. What differentiates an ACBA degree from others is that ACBA fully integrates professional trades with a core curriculum in the liberal arts.
If you want to learn how to lay a brick or weld a piece of metal, there are a lot of good trade schools around the country where you can do that. An ACBA degree, however, teaches you much more, as you learn from some of the finest artisans in their fields.
Traditional colleges offer majors such as history or preservation, and while those programs can educate you about these topics, they do not prepare you for an active career actually working hands-on to preserve, restore, rehabilitate or build architecturally significant structures. ACBA also offers a two-year associates degree in all of its specializations except Classical Architecture.
What Impact Have You Seen Abca Alum Make in the Charleston Community and Beyond?
Already, ACBA alumni are making a huge impact on the Charleston community and beyond. Earlier this summer, ACBA received the 2021 S.C. Preservation Award from Governor Henry McMaster, recognizing the many ways ACBA, its students and alumni have impacted the state through its outreach programs including such projects as restoration of the historic Hutchinson House on Edisto Island, which interprets the history of emancipated freedmen in the late 19th, early 20th century.
Other examples include building beautiful and inviting benches and bus stop spaces to encourage public transportation (with funding provided through the John Winthrop Charitable Trust), making repairs on such historic properties as the Fort Sumter National Monument and the iron fencing that surrounds Washington Park behind City Hall, and building the wall and gate entrance of the I’On Chapel, which was inspired by historic Strawberry Chapel (c. 1725) in Berkeley County.
A number of alumni have gone on to assume entrepreneurial leadership positions at such companies as Artis Construction, Robert Thomas Iron, UpSouth LLC, and the Charleston Plaster Company. Their work has included such restorations and renovations as Second Presbyterian Church (c. 1811), the Faber House (c. 1834 at 635 East Bay Street) and the Elias L. Rivers House (c. 1830) on James Island, and far too many others to list here. Many of these projects have been recognized by the Preservation Society’s Carolopolis Award.
Does Acba Offer Courses for the Public?
Before the COVID pandemic, ACBA offered week-long intensive classes to the public. Such classes included introduction to blacksmithing, furniture repair, interior design, book binding, stained glass, and architectural drawing, among many other topics. Those have been temporarily suspended for now, but we plan to resume these public opportunities once the pandemic safety protocols allow.
