Why Architecture Matters

Here's an interesting and infomative interview (by NPR's On Point host Tom Ashbrook) of New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger on his latest book - Why Architecture Matters. Great American Architect Richard Meier joins in as well.

Goldberger talks about how architecture expresses our cultural identity and laments (as I do) the absence of beauty and artfulness in "ordinary buildings" constructed in America today. (Just look at utilitarian buildings constructed a hundred years ago like barns, modest homes, downtown storefronts, even power and waterworks facilities, and you'll notice a distinct attention to craft along with a respectful public face.) Seems that the social contract that once existed between builders and the public - that every building project, no matter how ordinary, takes on the responsibility of promoting the public good - has vanished as developers go for "quick and cheap."

Goldberger and Meier explain how buildings can and should express three qualities that Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius assigned architecture over two thousand years ago - firmitas (strength), utilitas (usefulness), and venustas (beauty).

Consider purchasing Paul Goldberger's book from your independent, neighborhood bookseller. Find one near you in this handy Indy Directory.

Annie Pfeiffer Chapel

"Out of the ground, and into the light." - FLlW

Frank Lloyd Wright in Florida

Green Design at Florida Southern College

In 1938, Ludd Spivey - president of Florida Southern College - sent Frank Lloyd Wright a telegram that read:

DESIRE CONFERENCE CONCERNING PLANS FOR GREAT EDUCATION TEMPLE IN FLORIDA. STOP. WIRE COLLECT WHEN AND WHERE I CAN SEE YOU.

A campus with buildings exalting the very idea of learning - imagine that!

Frank Lloyd Wright - America's first green Architect - did. Over the next few months, he created a complete master plan of 18 new buildings for the 60-acre, orange-groved campus. Over the next decade and a half, 13 structures were completed including a system of covered esplanades connecting all of the buildings, providing shelter from the rain and shade in the hot Florida summers.

Mr. Wright, with encouragement from the enterprising Spivey, devised a method of construction by which students, in lieu of tuition, participated in the construction of new buildings and esplanades.

I took this series of photographs a couple of weeks ago.