Haystack Architecture: Vision and Legacy

I did not know Edward Barnes well, but our paths crossed on several occasions. Not long before he died, he and Mary Barnes came to Haystack to meet with my architecture students and talk about the origins of the project, the direct conversation with the landscape, the respect for the site, and the ability to produce by hand, innovative architecture.
 
For this and a few other profound meetings with Edward Larrabee Barnes, I was fortunate. As a Maine architect, Haystack’s architecture sets a standard, not only for timelessness, but also as an example, even in 2011, of problems we should be solving and innovative ways of seeing and building.
 
Edward encouraged, or perhaps admonished the students not to copy what he had done, but to respond with the same sensitivity by questioning what they were about and considering the repercussions, to recognize their responsibility combined with their capability for architectural expression.
 
The inspiration and lessons learned from Barnes and his work at Haystack are the basis for this summer’s exhibition, Haystack’s Architecture: Vision and Legacy. The projects presented, by models, drawings, and photographs, represent an extraordinary group of architects with the ability to bring together, the pragmatic with the poetic.
 
The show will be in Haystack’s Center for Community Programs, in Deer Isle village, opening on July 3rd, open until October 17, 2011.