Home Page Radio – ARCHITECT HOME

WPKN Community Radio

Host: Duo Dickinson Wednesday September 21, 2024, 12 Noon WPKN 89.5FM www.wpkn.org There’s a long history of young architects who design their parents’ home, or their own home—something, anything, to make their bones as a designer outside the grinding path of apprenticeship and licensing. Robert Venturi did a house for his mother, Vanna. Frank Gehry renovated a house for his family before anyone hired him. Even Alvar Aalto and Walter Gropius honed their design skills on residences for themselves. Forty years ago, we awoke in our own home: its subsequent recognition and huge resonance over these decades was completely unexpected, but fulfilled a 29 year old architect’s hopes, but more became a family home that evolved overe 4 construction reinventions. Directly connecting home design to home use is daunting, empowering and just a bit terrifying: many architects never finish the homes they start, many have great hopes for validation go unfulfilled: On Home Page this week we have three other architects who built homes for themselves or family, sometimes multiple times. Mark Simon FAIA is a partner in Centerbrook Architects. Louis Mackall is a craftsman and architect who created Breakfast Woodworks with Ken Field, and built his own home. Jennifer Lee of Obra Architects created a home for her mother in her words “…in the grand tradition of building houses for their parents.”