Centro de Interpretación de Carpintería Mudéjar Abulense (CICMA)
TELEPHONE:
ADDRESS:
Calle Extramuros s/n, 05369, Narros del Castillo
DESCRIPTION OF THE CENTER
The Avila Mudéjar Carpentry Centre (CICMA) was established in 2014. It is a non-official training centre, not attached to any institution, whose courses are delivered in facilities of the Town Council of Narros del Castillo.
The Centre’s aim is to disseminate knowledge of traditional structural carpentry… through training courses. Its premises serve both as a visitor centre on historic carpentry in Ávila province and as a training school, with a programme of courses.
Since its establishment this has included four or five courses a year, each for an average of 15 pupils. As the school is a non-profit training centre, the fees charged are used for preparing the syllabus for each course, the centre’s maintenance, the purchase of wood for coursework, the teaching materials, or the centre’s heating, among other items.
COURSES
Although there is no pre-set calendar for courses, these are usually given in the autumn and spring. All give the pupils training allowing them to undertake traditional structural carpentry projects, including project design, wood-marking and calculations for roof and ceiling frameworks with ornamental strapwork. These… courses cover just about every style of roof historically employed in Spanish carpentry.
The course instructor is Angel María Martín López, a master traditional structural carpenter with over 25 years’ professional experience in projects for the restoration and building of roof frameworks and training.
Some of the courses currently offered are:
– Introduction to wooden strapwork
– Introduction to traditional Spanish structural carpentry
– Designing and marking out strapwork roof frameworks with crosspieces
– Montea full-scale plans for on-site use and building of octagonal roof structures
– Advanced course in traditional structural carpentry
– Five-segment roof structures: design and calculation
– Spherical wooden strapwork: an introduction
– Structural construction of strapwork domes
OTHER INFORMATION
The courses are normally held at weekends, with durations of 20 to 30 hours. In each one, as well as the course-specific subject summary, trainees receive dimensioned drawings of the element or structure under study, sets of carpenter’s squares for ceiling strapwork and roof frameworks,… and didactic three-dimensional cut-outs.
The profile of the Centre’s trainees is varied, though many are practitioners in the fields of carpentry, architecture and restoration. There are no particular prior requirements for taking part.
Although there are other centres in Spain that offer structural carpentry courses, the Avila Mudéjar Carpentry Centre is the only one to focus exclusively on the traditional Iberian techniques known as carpintería de lo blanco.
For pupils who so wish, the Centre issues an attendance and successful completion certificate for each course.
