Plasterer

As a stucco worker you make the beautiful details in ceilings and on facades — cornices rosettes columns lists and ornaments often in plaster and lime. You work both creating new and restoring old craftsmanship in churches manor houses and protected buildings. When you are fully trained you are the craftsperson who gets a room to look finished and refined all the way to the ceiling.

§What do you do in everyday life?

A typical day can start by mixing gypsum or lime mortar and drawing up a cornice along a ceiling with a template you have cut yourself. Other days you cast ornaments in molds, set rosettes or stand on a scaffold and repair an old facade. You work with your hands with patience and with an eye for lines and patterns fitting precisely.

• 01You learn to mix and work with gypsum, lime, and mortar.
• 02You learn to draw profiles and moldings with templates.
• 03You learn to make molds and cast ornaments and rosettes.
• 04You learn to restore and imitate old plasterwork.
• 05You learn to read drawings and measure accurately.
• 06You learn to work safely on scaffolding and at height.

§How do you get started?

You start with a basic course at a vocational school, where you get the basic craft techniques in your fingers. Then you find an apprenticeship with a stucco worker or restoration company, where you get paid while learning the trade. The rest of the education alternates between school periods and practice so you constantly test what you learn on real tasks.

§The way forward

As fully trained you can work for a stucco or painting company with restoration firms or start for yourself. With experience you can specialise in restoration of protected buildings or become the one who trains new apprentices. Many build further with courses in preservation and older building techniques.

“When a ceiling takes people's breath away, it's the stucco worker's hands they have to thank.”