Samuel Mockbee's Mason's Bend, Hale County, Alabama. Photo courtesy of Rural Studio.
Samuel Mockbee, Architect, 1944 - 2001.
A visit I still covet, I was fortunate to meet the phenomenal architect Ana Escalante in Palm Springs, California a few years ago. Over the course of several days of conversations, she talked about architects as those who solve all types of problems with the same kind of creativity and rigour that we also use when designing a building. Dovetailing her wisdom with that of one of my favorite architecture professors, Jacqueline Gargus, at The Ohio State University, “Well, there was a woman who lived in a shoe.” That is to say that you can theoretically make a living space out of anything, even an old shoe.
Like many other families in the U.S., mine lives in a school district that is facing a new set of severe financial constraints set before them due to a November levy failure. One of my recent writing feats was to digest comments from parents that have children at an arts magnet school and then to make a 5 minute presentation before the Board of Education as to why it is important to “save” the arts-focused elementary curriculum. Each parent’s comments are based on the fact that there is a small portion of the population that think outside of the “norms” and that an alternative teaching philosophy can do magic for their out-of-the-box child.
Being an architect in the middle of an educational problem at present reminds me of the late architect Samuel Mockbee, who is perhaps best known for making “the most” on a shoestring budget. His work is acclaimed for its use of recycled materials that are come together to create ingeniously beautiful spaces designed especially for those of us in our society who have very little resources of their our own. Samuel Mockbee’s professional career embodied the predominant architectural thought of leading, influential that WE CAN make a difference both architecturally and socially.
Copyright 2012 Stephanie Aurora Lewis
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