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Proceed and Be Bold: Rural Studio After Samuel Mockbee
"Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul."Samuel MockbeeBased on this simple premise, in 1992 Samuel Mockbee launched the Rural Studio to create homes and community buildings for the poor while offering hands-on architecture training for coming generations. Choosing impoverished Hale County, Alabama, for his bold experiment, Mockbee and his Auburn University students peppered this left-behind corner of the rural South with striking buildings ofexceptional design. Most use recycled and curious materials: hay bales, surplus tires, leftover carpet tiles, even discarded 1980 Chevy Caprice windshields. The publication of Rural Studio brought this innovative work to the public, andfive printings latercontinues to affect the way people view architecture.
Since Mockbee's death in 2001, the Rural Studio has continued to thrive, a tribute to its founder's vision. In 2004, the American Institute of Architects posthumously awarded Mockbee its highest honor, the Gold Medal for Architecture. Under Mockbee's successor, Andrew Freear, the studio has seeded southwest Alabama with an additional seventeen architectural landmarks, and all are shown here. With thoughtful text from Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and stunning photographs by Timothy Hursley, thisnew book explains the changes the studio has undergone during the last four years and its continuing ability to "proceed and be bold," as Mockbee counseled.
Since Mockbee's death in 2001, the Rural Studio has continued to thrive, a tribute to its founder's vision. In 2004, the American Institute of Architects posthumously awarded Mockbee its highest honor, the Gold Medal for Architecture. Under Mockbee's successor, Andrew Freear, the studio has seeded southwest Alabama with an additional seventeen architectural landmarks, and all are shown here. With thoughtful text from Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and stunning photographs by Timothy Hursley, thisnew book explains the changes the studio has undergone during the last four years and its continuing ability to "proceed and be bold," as Mockbee counseled.
- GenresArchitectureNonfiction
176 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 16, 2019
Founded by Samuel Mockbee in 1993, the Rural Studio is an architecture studio and educational program run by Alabama's Auburn University. It puts students to work building homes and community structures in the poor, rural areas of the state - predominantly Hale and Perry counties. Here the students meet and befriend community members, design buildings to meet the needs of the client, and balance the economic, aesthetic and environmental concerns of their projects.
The sub-title of Oppenheimer Dean's first title devoted to Rural Studio, Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency , captures the appeal of this program very neatly. There is an essential decency to the idea that the field of architecture does not exist solely for the benefit of the wealthy, that beauty does not belong to the privileged, and that, as Mockbee once expressed it, "Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul."
This second volume devoted to Rural Studio focuses on the years after Mockbee's death in 2001, when the program struggled to find a balance between inevitable change and the need to carry on Mockbee's vision. The projects highlighted include a community ballpark, a pavilion and restrooms for a newly re-opened park (the only public recreation area in all of Perry County), and a highly idiosyncratic house built for the equally idiosyncratic (and charming) Music Man.
Proceed and Be Bold is a beautiful book, both visually and thematically, and a worthy follow-up to the first title. It left me with the comforting feeling that while so many of us seem determined to sink our efforts into projects that do little to benefit the common good, there are people who are confronting some of our social ills with creative solutions.
The sub-title of Oppenheimer Dean's first title devoted to Rural Studio, Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency , captures the appeal of this program very neatly. There is an essential decency to the idea that the field of architecture does not exist solely for the benefit of the wealthy, that beauty does not belong to the privileged, and that, as Mockbee once expressed it, "Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul."
This second volume devoted to Rural Studio focuses on the years after Mockbee's death in 2001, when the program struggled to find a balance between inevitable change and the need to carry on Mockbee's vision. The projects highlighted include a community ballpark, a pavilion and restrooms for a newly re-opened park (the only public recreation area in all of Perry County), and a highly idiosyncratic house built for the equally idiosyncratic (and charming) Music Man.
Proceed and Be Bold is a beautiful book, both visually and thematically, and a worthy follow-up to the first title. It left me with the comforting feeling that while so many of us seem determined to sink our efforts into projects that do little to benefit the common good, there are people who are confronting some of our social ills with creative solutions.
March 9, 2021
Get to know this incredible architecture program in poor rural Southern US. We need more projects like this.
February 20, 2008
beautiful
September 11, 2023
More of the same. If you liked "Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency" then you'll enjoy this one too.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews