Colonial is a common adjective used to describe American houses. Yet which colonial do we mean? Normally we are referring to English Colonial Houses. Yet, from Florida to California, our colonial history is primarily Spanish, not English. Our oldest continuously inhabited city, St. Augustine, Florida, and early Southwest missions were built by Spanish conquerors, colonists, and missionaries.
Spanish Colonial
Architecture seen through the hand and eye, moments of memory recorded, elements studied and filed away in my mind for inspiration: my sketchbooks are filled with these, some of which I share here.
When an historic Colonial Revival home in Fort Worth, Texas needed a gentle facelift to restore its original beauty, the homeowners called on Brent Hull of Hull Historical to head up the renovations. For classical expertise in renovating the facade, Hull Historical turned to Christine G. H. Franck, Inc.
Byrd Residence after renovation
I’m so pleased the new publication New Palladians featuring the work of my friends and colleagues, as well some of my own, will be released on May 17, 2010 at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London.
Image by Carl Laubin. Composite image of Palladio’s works
Winterthur Style Sourcebook: Traditional American Rooms
a lecture by Christine G. H. Franck and Brent Hull
Thursday, April 22, 2010, Gilliland Residence, 3720 Beverly Drive, Dallas, TX
The lecture will explore the Winterthur Museum’s period rooms, the role of the Colonial Revival throughout America and the South, and their relevance for the best of design and craftsmanship today.
Last night at the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation in Atlanta, Brent Hull and I lectured on our new book Winterthur Style Sourcebook: Traditional American Rooms. The event was organized by the ICA&CA Southeast Chapter, and sponsored by Randall Brothers. Thank you! Today we’re teaching a seminar on classical design and good practice in millwork at Historical Concepts’ wonderful office. High up on the 4th floor, our students are hard at work on an esquisse for a classical interior. The deadline is an hour away! It’s great to see such talent and focus from these terrific architects and designers.
Christine G. H. Franck and Brent Hull lecture on The Winterthur Style Sourcebook, Traditional American Rooms: Celebrating Style, Craftsmanship, and Historic Woodwork.
Friday, February 5
Lecture & Book-signing for Winterthur Style Sourcebook: Traditional American Rooms – Celebrating Style, Craftsmanship, and Historic Woodwork.
The book has been called “an extremely useful design guide and tutorial on the creation of classic interior architecture,” by Period Homes, and the authors’ lecture will present fascinating information about stylistic origins that will be of great interest to architects, design professionals, and the general public.
6:30 P.M. Reception; 7:00 P.M. Lecture
Location: Rhodes Hall – Headquarters for The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, 1516 Peachtree Street, NW Atlanta, GA 30309
This past Friday, in nine straight hours of intense work, my graduate architecture students at Notre Dame completed their first esquisse, en loge, designing a hypothetical urban residence which they will develop over the next four weeks. Being well-taught by Professor Richard Economakis and the other dedicated Notre Dame faculty, these first year graduate students with only a semester of architectural education under their belts, performed admirably! What a rare joy it is to have an architecture school that teaches students architecture, instead of abstract, incomprehensible, inconsequential, personal expression. Hope you enjoy these pictures of my delightful students hard at work creating beautiful, meaningful, appropriate architecture.
New Classic American Houses: The Architecture of Albert, Righter & Tittmann by Dan Cooper, with foreword by Robert A. M. Stern
The Vendome Press, New York, NY; 2009
224 pages; hardcover; 200 color and b&w illustrations; $50ISBN 978-0-86565-253-8
Reviewed by Christine G. H. Franck for Clem Labine’s Period Homes Magazine. JANUARY 2010
A History of Invention
In “The Burden of the Past and the English Poet” W. Jackson Bate questions whether the best way to address the history of modern English poetry, and the arts in general, might be to examine the anxiety felt by the artist in the face of past achievements as the artist asks himself: “What is there left to do?” From the diverse work beautifully presented in New Classic American Houses it is abundantly clear that Boston, MA-based Albert, Righter & Tittmann Architects (AR&T) suffers not from any burden of the past. Rather, AR&T respects and revels in tradition, converses knowingly with it, quotes from it, questions it, adds to it and in turn creates work equaling the tradition the firm’s principals clearly admire.
Experiencing diverse points of view elucidates the strengths and weaknesses of each, reveals their common ground and allows one to discover how each may be improved. In recent years I’ve had just such an experience teaching design studios in two schools of architecture influenced by different traditions: one Modernist, the other Classical.(1) Teaching the same design problem in different settings, I have found students with quite varied knowledge, skills and deficits. From this I am certain that the future will be best served if architectural education draws from both the wisdom of tradition and the lessons of Modernism.