Chapter 25

Nicholas had talked to PhD students about the mental shift required to achieve a doctorate. They described the pursuit of their PhD as a marathon. A “paper chase” experience like the movie of the same name about law school, it was a grueling intellectual journey that transformed not just what you knew but how you thought. His schooling here was the same—this place was the PhD of carpentry.

Four years had passed, each step of theory and practice piled atop the last, shaping his mind to the science and philosophy of the Swiss/German craft movement. The same philosophy that built BMWs and Mercedes into world class automobiles was turning Nicholas and his classmates into world class carpenters.

The first year had been about fundamentals—learning to see wood not just as material but as a living substance with grain, tension, history written in growth rings. Learning to use traditional tools with precision, to feel the difference between sharp and functionally sharp, to understand that the gap between acceptable and excellent was vast and required traversing every day.

One of the hardest concepts for him to grasp was that excellent was not the same as perfect. Excellent was the real world, while perfect was a time-wasting pipe dream.

The second year expanded into systems thinking. They moved from individual joinery to understanding structures as integrated wholes, from single-piece projects to complex assemblies of interconnected elements. The carpentry masters emphasized what they called “Gesamtdenken”—comprehensive thinking that considered every aspect of a project from raw material selection to final finish, from immediate function to centuries of potential use.

Master Hoffman, who led their structural design course, was particularly insistent on this approach. A lean, precise man with wire-rimmed glasses and a doctorate in structural engineering alongside his master carpenter certification, he represented the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom that defined the Swiss approach.

“A joint is not merely a connection,” he would say, pacing between their drafting tables. “It is a conversation between forces. Compression, tension, shear—all must be acknowledged, all must be addressed. The project tells the joint what it needs. The joint will tell you what it needs. You need to learn to listen.”

They spent three months just on draft analysis—learning to read the complex technical drawings used in traditional timber framing, drawings that contained generations of accumulated knowledge encoded in precise lines and symbols. Each line weight, each notation carried significance that could mean the difference between a structure that would stand for centuries and one that would fail in decades.

Nicholas’s German had improved enough that he could fully engage with the theoretical material now, could participate in the intense technical discussions that accompanied their practical work. The language itself shaped how they thought about the craft—German carpentry terms often contained philosophical dimensions absent from their English equivalents, connections to broader systems of thought about material, form, and function.

Their days followed the rhythm of the seasons. Spring and summer were for outdoor construction, practicing timber framing techniques on actual structures, learning to work with the weather, understanding how environmental conditions affected materials and methods. Fall and winter turned inward to fine joinery, furniture making, detailed theoretical study.

The third year brought specialization. Each student chose areas of deeper focus while maintaining broad competence across the craft. Some concentrated on the restoration of historic structures, others on innovative applications of traditional techniques to contemporary design problems. Nicholas gravitated toward “Treppen und Geländerbau”—staircase and railing construction—a specialization that combined structural engineering, geometric precision, and aesthetic refinement.