Not long ago, I learned of a short-film competition organized by the Center for Architecture + Design titled "Architecture Is...". The competition objective is to "create a film expressing what Architecture Is... to you."

Find my video submission below. Follow the Architecture Is... YouTube channel to see all the entries as they come in.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

quarter-scale model of "Musical House", courtesy of Kickstarter.comNow's your chance to contribute to an "interactive public sculpture" in the form of a house, by street artist Swoon. In collaboration with New Orleans Airlift, Swoon and other sound artists aim to create a permanent, full-scale "Musical House" out of material salvaged on site from a dilapidated New Orleans Creole cottage. Their first step is to create a "shantytown sound lab" to test the ideas to be incorporated into the "Musical House". Hard not to love a Kickstarter project like this.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Andrew Wyeth, Wood Stove Study, 1962 watercolor © Andrew Wyeth. Collection of the Marunuma Art Park. Courtesy of the Farnsworth Art Museum.

Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
June 11, 2011 – October 30, 2011

Growing up, a print of Andrew Wyeth’s c. 1948 Christina’s World hung in our family room above the couch. We logged many hours there watching Rockford Files and The Carol Burnett Show, with Christina behind us, poised in the field beyond her home. It’s an inauspicious association for a masterwork. To me, Christina’s World was as familiar as the couch, Jim Rockford and Carol Burnett. So, when I attended the Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World and the Olson House exhibit at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. Andrew Wyeth’s watercolors and drawings dazzled me.

Over the course of nearly 30 years, Wyeth studied and painted compelling vignettes of the Olson House in Cushing, Maine, its environs, and its owners: brother and sister Alvaro and Christina Olson. Clearly, he fell under the spell of the house and the life in and around it, as will you if you attend the special exhibit at the Wyeth Center. It includes approximately 50 watercolors and drawings, the majority of which are from the Marunuma Art Park collection of Asaka, Japan (which are rarely exhibited in the U.S.). Among the featured works are some preparatory drawings and drafts for the famed Christina’s World, which hangs at the MOMA. Three other paintings particularly captivated me.

Stairway and Front Door
Stairway and Front Door c. 1948 offers a view of the Olson House front hall from some distance up the front stair. It beautifully captures the turn of the stair rail and the circular cap on the starting newel post. The front door is slightly ajar, revealing someone (probably Alvaro) partially in view seated on the front landing. It readily captures a sense of enticement, and of prospect and refuge -- characteristics identified in Winifred Gallagher’s House Thinking as key to enhancing the experience of home.  As I wrote in my earlier post about timeless interiors art, those same characteristics are key to enhancing the experience of interiors art, too.

Alvaro on Front Doorstep
Alvaro on Front Door Step c. 1942 reveals that six years prior to painting Stairway and Front Door, Wyeth was already studying Alvaro in relation to his house, at the same spot, only seen from outside. Here, Alvaro is a smallish figure perched in front of his formidable house. Perhaps this was a spot where he regularly took breaks from farming. His casual presence out front is an interesting foil to the house’s severity. Wyeth’s rendering of the windows, in which he preserves the white of the paper to suggest reflective glass (as well as perhaps the soul of the house) is stunning. This watercolor conveys the power of complex order, another characteristic which enhances the experience of home, as cited in House Thinking.

Alvaro and Christina
Alvaro and Christina c. 1968 literally features neither Alvaro nor Christina. Instead, this interior watercolor, painted not long after their deaths, represents Alvaro and Christina in the architecture and furnishings of their home. A worn, vibrant, blue door in full sunlight, to the right in the painting, is notable for Wyeth due to the unusual intensity of the hue. The door likely represents Alvaro, who Wyeth often depicted in the outdoors working on the grounds or on the house. To the left of the door, also highlighted by daylight, are a bucket, basin and basket, perhaps representing Christina’s domestic interior realm. Alvaro and Christina seem present in the “material articulation” (as Alain de Botton might put it) of their home. The Olson House, as depicted by Wyeth’s watercolors, both reflects and commemorates its owners, as houses which enhance our experiences of home should.

Bonus
Once you’ve seen the show, travel approximately 14 miles to Cushing, Maine to see the Olson House, itself. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Farnsworth’s acquisition of it. Plus, the house is expected to receive status as a National Historic Landmark in 2011. I have yet to see the house, but it’s on my must-see list. Put it and the Andrew Wyeth exhibit from the Marunuma Art Park collection of Asaka, Japan on yours.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

book cover, courtesy of Amazon.com

Photographs by Steve Rosenthal at de Menil Gallery, Groton, MA

April 4- June 5, 2011

(on loan from Historic New England)

Steve Rosenthal's gorgeous black-and-white photography of white churches in  the New England vernacular can be savored in book form or up-close on exhibit.

You may recognize Rosenthal's name from his many credits in architectural photography, but for years he pursued a pet project -- composing breathtaking fine-art photos of a uniquely New England icon. From stoic meetinghouses to elegant Greek and Gothic Revival churches, his collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century, textured, white structures in the New England landscape is a treasure.

Catch the artist's gallery talk Wednesday, April 6 at 7:15 pm at the de Menil Gallery in Groton, Mass. If you can't make it to the exhibit (or even if you can), grab a copy of the book.

Find more examples of stunning New England vernacular photography here.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

The Nathaniel Bowditch House, HSI headquartersTo Salemites, 17th, 18th and 19th century dwellings and buildings are part of the everyday backdrop we see on our way to the post office, coffee shop, and park. Historic architecture is part of our daily lives. So much so that we often forget how unique the fabric of our port city is. Now’s your chance to recognize those projects and people who have helped preserve it in the context of how we live now.

Take a look around your neighborhood, street, or even your own home and nominate a recently completed renovation project, preservation-minded person, or group of preservation-minded people for an Historic Salem, Inc. (HSI) 2011 Preservation Award. The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2011. Find the nomination form here.

Hannah Diozzi, the Chair of the Salem Historical Commission and one of the approximately seven jurors on the Preservation Awards Selection Committee, notes that the criteria for the project awards are generally based upon a combination of The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties from the National Park Service and the Salem Historical Commission Guidelines Notebook. She summarizes, “The kind of thing we look for is that the renovation is appropriate to the period when the house was built.”

Nominations for projects located in the four historic districts: McIntire, Salem Common, Derby Street and Lafayette Street are welcome as are projects located elsewhere in the city, like North and South Salem, the Willows, Bridge Street, and Gallows Hill.

Categories for nomination include: private residences, commercial properties, publicly-owned properties, properties owned by non-profits, landscape projects, and individuals/groups (companies, institutions, organizations) who have made notable contributions to Salem’s historic preservation.

Last year’s winners included D.I.Y homeowners, homeowners working with home professionals, developers, and the Peabody Essex Museum along with the Salem Fire Department for their respective disaster-management plan and response to the two-alarm fire at the Ropes Mansion in the summer of 2009.

This year’s winners will be recognized on May 18, 2011 at Historic Salem, Inc.’s Annual Meeting and will receive a certificate as well as a one year membership (or membership renewal) to Historic Salem, Inc.

You can support Salem’s historic preservation by making a nomination. Spread the word.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast and North Shore Art Throb