Architectural Ornaments @museum.de

From weather vanes via historic dormer and window trim, roof spires and tower superstructures to the gilded crown on the State Chancellery in Dresden – making architectural ornaments demands the highest level of craftsmanship.

Of course, you can't train as an ornamental tinsmith – but you can specialise after completing your training as a metal roofer. Ornamental tinsmiths reconstruct and shape ornamental and decorative features made of copper and zinc. They work from historical drawings or use the original architectural features as patterns – if they still exist.

That requires a lot of work steps: first, you have to take an impression of the old ornament. Then a plaster mould is made from the impression, giving you a negative form – into which tin is poured. That produces a copy of the original feature: a new positive. Metal ornaments made in this way are then soldered together, for example to create a mansard window.

Reconstructions that are true to the original are mainly used on listed buildings. And they have to be absolutely precisely crafted, because they must meet the requirements of the laws governing the protection of historical monuments.