Human Powered Cranes

For five years, I have worked with Handshouse Studio to explore history, technology and culture through hands-on reconstructions of historical objects. Several of these projects have focused on wooden, human-powered construction cranes. The pictured cranes were created from research into original illustrations found in the Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie, a design of Jean-Rudolph Perronet, and drawings in the Wenceslas IV Bible, respectively.

In the most recent project, I worked as part of a small team that traveled to the Czech Republic to work with craftspeople and engineers on the initial construction of the crane. The crane was part of the exhibition "Charles IV, Emperor by the Grace of God" at Prague Castle and was documented by a Czech film company. The following year, I returned to Eastern Europe as a technical assistant to a Handshouse travel program, where we helped to reconstruct the same crane at Točník castle.

The Diderot crane has been exhibited at the Massachusetts College of Art and at the South Shore Natural Science Center in Norwell, Massachusetts. The Perronet crane was displayed at the State Pier in New Bedford, MA and outside the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston for 3 years. Both cranes were part of an exhibition of models, drawings and other research at the Massachusetts College of Art.

More Information

• Handshouse Studio: Building Replicas of the Perronet and the Diderot T Cranes
• Timber Framer's Guild crane exhibition announcement
• Details about the mediaeval crane at Točník from roofs.cz
• Radio Praha interview about the crane at Prague Castle
• Gallery of photos from crane construction at Prague Castle in 2006