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We had an unexpectedly delightful experience at Monticello yesterday.  We rode our bikes from Charlottesville thru the beautiful early spring morning.  All of the tulips were in boom.  The trees were just budding out.    

Here it all was.  This was the beginning of America’s love affair with neoclassical architecture.  Whether you have had an architectural education or not, Monticello is seared into your iconography.  It’s on the back of a nickel, for God’s sake.  So it is difficult not to bring emotional baggage to the interface.   Yet, all the same, we were seduced.

It was interesting to learn that Monticello was Jefferson’s reaction to the English.  He spent time in Williamsburg, and considered that architectural language as “rude and misshapen.”  No, what this new country needs is an architecture which speaks to the classical ideals of Greece and Rome.  An architecture which invokes the concepts of individual liberty, education, rationality, clarity and restrained proportion is what is needed.  And that’s what we got.  

Jefferson’s copying of French Neoclassicism is well documented.  Palladio is cited as another of Jefferson’s influences.  It seems that while he may not have visited any of Palladio’s buildings, he knew about them from his books.  The Rotunda at the University of Virginia, which we also visited, is of course a direct copy of the Pantheon.  

You’ve got to admit, Jefferson had a point.  If you’re going to establish an architecture of democracy, you absolutely would want the flowing, genteel, graceful and soft geometry of Neoclassical inspired Monticello compared to the boring chop a block British.

And, yes, none of this bucolic splendor would have been possible without Jefferson’s ownership of other human beings.  That fact is acknowledged thu out the experience.  They are just finishing the construction of what they call a meditation to Jefferson’s slaves, with their names cut into corten steel panels, photo below.

As I was writing this post this AM, I was dabbling around with this drawing.  I kept thinking, the design of Monticello is really about that dome that he added to his house.  He could write the Declaration of Independence, and also establish an architectural ideal for a new democracy.

As we continue our stay in Buenos Aires, we are spending our time in avid exploration of the city.  Traveling around both on bike and on foot, we have become captivated by the architectural expression of the sides of apartment buildings.  

Most apartment buildings have the footprint of a long rectangle.  The short side faces the street, and the long side extends back from the street.  For the long sides of the rectangular volume, there are typically two or three vertical cuts.  These cuts are made to give light and ventilation to the apartments that do not face the street.  What has focussed our attention is the sculptural manner in which these vertical cuts are made.

The cuts are typically very wide at the top of the building, and they narrow the lower they are.  The wider opening at the top brings as much light and ventilation as possible into the lower apartments.   The visual effect, once you tune into it, is very powerful and aesthetically pleasing.

You can see similar vertical cuts in the sides of apartment buildings in, for example, NYC.  Yet these are always straight vertical shafts with no stepping.  

As the four photos show, there is a wide variation in the geometry these forms.  The stepping of the cuts is typically not symmetrical.  That is, one face is typically not the mirror image of the other face.  The juxtaposition of how the cuts widen from side to side gives an amazing sculptural and organic quality to what are very ordinary buildings.  The best ones have a ziggurat quality to them.  

The sketch below uses this geometry as a jumping off point for a possible architectural form.

Yesterday in Buenos Aires, we had another out of this world architectural experience.  This time, it was at the Chacarita Cemetery.  In our travels, we enjoy visiting cemeteries, given their very pure layouts and designs.

After you enter thru a very well done neoclassical building, you are deposited in sectors of mausoleums, which were built in the late 1800s.  This section of the cemetery is a design wonder in and of itself.  Each mausoleum tries to outdo the other.  Our joke was that the best way to take it with you is to build yourself an expensive burial chamber designed to out do the ones next to you.  

Then you see what at first glance appears to be a vast, open plane, with low modernist structures and elements dotting the landscape.

As you start to traverse this plane, you realize that there are multiple levels of burial crypts below.  This is what is called the Pantheon.  This was built in the early 1940s. Long, rectangular openings are cut into the plane, which bring light into the levels below.  You descend staircases, which allow you to then wander thru the vast lower levels.  It is a very powerful architectural expression and experience.  It is as if the visual world has been reduced to nothing but mass and light.  It is pure archetype. We spent nearly 2 hours in fascinated exploration.  

As we researched the history of the cemetery that afternoon, we realized that the Pantheon was designed by a woman, architect Itala Fulvia Villa.  This was another stunning realization.  She was Argentina’s first female architect.  Based on our research so far, it seems that she studied with LeCorbusier.

Our photos do not, of course, capture in any way the profound experience that the cemetery induces.  The website titled Sexto Panteon has very nice aerial views, with an aerial video.  It also has floor plans and sections, as well as interesting features such as descriptions of some of the caretakers of the Pantheon.  

After an experience like this, you wonder why a design with this power is not included in the run of the mill architectural history books that they tell you to read in school.  Our predisposition to worship culturally approved icons, I guess, precludes excellent pieces like this.  

We have had similar revelatory experiences in cemeteries.  The Poblenou Cemetery in Barcelona is an experience unto itself, with the above ground burial niches extending to what appears to be infinity.

Barns in Nova Scotia typically have a small appendage, which is located near or at the center of the longitudinal elevation. As we were riding our bikes thru the countryside, the preponderance of these small appendages became more evident. We ended up dubbing this typology Barnacle: Barn (Barn) + Acle (Appendage) = Barnacle.

We think that the function of the Acle must be entry, given that they are located in the center. Some are very small, like the top right photo. Others seem to have space for other needs. What continued to fascinate us is the:
-relatively very small proportion of the Acle to the rest of the barn
-the on center placement within the overall form
-and the preponderance.

For barns in Otsego County, most Acles were added to the short end, were placed off center at a corner, and their function was for the milk processing equipment; they are called milk houses. Quite possibly, architectural historians have a name, or a word, for the Acles in Nova Scotia.

First, the Halifax Salt Shaker, and now the Nova Scotia Barnacle. Will there be any end to these architectural bon mots? If you happen to be reading along, you can only hope.

We just got to Halifax, Nova Scotia. And during our first bike ride thru the neighborhood we are staying in, a new housing typology, at least to us, came immediately into focus. This house form has the following characteristics:
-rectangular plan
-VERY low slope gable roof
-the ridge runs transversely, rather than longitudinally
-two story

The top left photo shows the purest example that we were able to find. And then, as the other photos show, there are all sorts of variations that have been applied, including:
-front porches
-back shed extensions
-bright colors
-stucco cladding
-bay windows
As the bottom right photo shows, the form lends itself to contemporary materials. In this cladding, it looks quite sleek and modern.

What we really like about the form is the efficiency. It is a sleek box with no wasted volume for the roof segment. We only hope that on the second floor, the ceiling follows the roof slope, rather than having the typical flat ceiling.

We did a brief search into Halifax housing types, and a compendium did not immediately surface. We are sure that historians have given this type a name. The basic form has the same purity of a New England Saltbox. So, we have given this typology the at least temporary moniker, Halifax Salt Shaker.

One of the instructions for our trek in Peru was to bring along sets of colored pencils and pads of paper for the local kids. We were told that we were going to stop by a school or two, so as to give these tokens of good will. Well, it turned out that most of the schools in the very small villages were open sporadically.

As we were resting right after lunch, there were a few children hanging around: their mom was selling her weaving nearby. So the idea occurred, let’s give the pencils and paper to these kids. Then Kurt said, let’s break out the pens and paper and start drawing! And that’s what we did. Our guide served as translator, and everyone got busy drawing the tent that was just in front of us. And as you can see, those are drawings with great knowledge. The drawing on the left even has, dare I say it, transparency!

The universality of drawing continues to astound us. As we get older, we all loose the innocent freedom that drawing offers. But who knows, with any luck, these kids will keep putting lines on paper with a pencil.

In our days in Peru so far, we have visited numerous Inca sites. Machu Picchu, of course, is the ne plus ultra of the Incas: it is truly a wonder. But there is a site nearby, named Wiñay Wayna, that to us at least, is just as captivating. Built in the 15th century, it is cut into the steep, concave hillside. The curving terraces feel as if you have been floated into space. The environmental harmony with which the Incas lived is manifest.

The purpose was agricultural, so the housing was for the middle class workers who tended the terraces. This is in contrast to the function of Machu Picchu, which was a palace for the king, which then excluded everybody else.

Wiñay Wayna is on the Inca Trail. And the only way to get there is on foot, up or across challenging mountain terrain. Which means that there are blessedly few tourists. Maybe the real reason we liked it so much was because there were no fleets of tour buses idling in a parking lot below.