Anderson and Ora Lee Harris' home in Hale County, Alabama
People and Place Matter
The professional challenge, whether one is an architect in the rural American South or elsewhere in the world, is how to avoid being so stunned by the power of modern technology and economic affluence that one does not lose sight of the fact that people and place matter.
For me, drawing and painting are the initial influences for the making of architecture. The sketch is always out front. It sees ahead and deeper into what is already on the paper.
The initial sketch is always an emotion, not a concept. In the beginning, it is important to allow the imagination to move freely without any influence from a preconceived form. It’s a mark that suggests the possibility of an idea. For me, it’s the act of drawing that allows the hand to come into accord with the heart. When that happens, there comes a moment when the marks of the sketch — it can be a pen mark or a computer mark — utter the first deeper knowledge of what will come later.*
I got to spend a week working with Professor Sambo Mockbee at Auburn’s Rural Studio. Made in part from scrap materials, the Butterfly House, as it came to be known, shows what is possible when it comes to affordable housing. Rooted in place, not commodity-driven, beyond codes: home. I have not continued what Mockbee showed us, nor have others. Truth be told, none of us under his influence have equaled his level of work. Nor have the professors who followed him. Good work has certainly been done at Auburn. Sambo reached into the spirit of the people and the place—rural Alabama—and somehow those dreams, myths, and layered history expressed themselves in form. The thing I remember most about Sambo is that his dreams were bigger than our shared reality. What made him different was that he made them reality. Three decades later I find myself faced with an opportunity and still hear Sambo’s words in my head:
” Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul. “
Beulahland ... what does it want to be. I will dream and follow Mockbee’s process.
To learn more about Sambo Mockbee visit his family’s web site.
POSTED BY JON