Watching the presentations at this year’s Monterey Design Conference in northern California, attendees got a multiple-image portrait of architecture in the early 21st century. Elegant buildings with refined details alternated with exuberant installations that relied on digital know-how and student labor. Snapshots from Arkansas, Minnesota, and California appeared between reports from France, Japan, and Brazil. And a tribal elder told stories of working with Louis Kahn, as newer members of the profession listened raptly. More than 600 people gathered at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove at the end of September for the event, which is presented every other year by the AIA California Council.
“We build between the parameters of the everyday and the world we imagine,” said Marlon Blackwell, whose graceful yet often-inexpensive projects have garnered international attention for the Fayetteville, Arkansas-based architect. “We work between the ideal and the improvised.” Like Blackwell, architects Anne Fougeron from San Francisco and Jennifer Yoos from VJAA in Minneapolis showed projects that drew deeply from their particular locations while transcending their regional roots. In her introduction of Blackwell, Record Editor in Chief Cathleen McGuigan said, “I realized how dated and useless certain terms have become, phrases such as ‘vernacular architecture’ or ‘regional modernism.’ The values embodied in Marlon’s work should be at the core of architecture everywhere.” The same could be said for the work of Fougeron and Yoos.
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