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Samuel Mockbee sought to sustain humanity through architecture.
By Susan S. Szenasy
Editor In Chief
March 2002
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Samuel Mockbee (standing) with students at Newbern design studio, in a 1997
photo from the new book Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency
by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and Timothy Hursley.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
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I didn't know him--merely knew of him--but what I knew of Sam Mockbee inspired
me to no end. He was a man with deep ties to community, to the American
South and its poor, to excellence in architectural education, and to the
relevance of design to our world. In short: to truly sustainable life. He
spent the last eight years instructing students at Auburn's Rural Studio,
a hands-on program he founded with D.K. Ruth in 1993 at the Alabama university's
College of Architecture, Design, and Construction. He taught each new class
that architecture was about reaching out, using your hands, mind, and heart.
He encouraged his pupils to study local and found materials and to use these
to create beautiful buildings that respond to their unique climate and clientele.
Together, they built a memorable collection of homes, parks, and public
buildings for (and with) the poor of Hale County. With this work they proved
that architecture is meant to sustain life, family, community, and the environment.
In the many interviews Mockbee gave after winning a MacArthur Foundation
grant in 2000, usually given in his friendly, rough, rumpled manner, I learned
about his knowledge of firearms, his love of painting, and his abiding
attachment to the deep South. After receiving his $500,000 prize he bought
a used pick-up truck and looked forward, as he told one writer, "to
a sabbatical and some serious painting." But that was not to be.
Samuel Mockbee died at the University of Mississippi Medical Center on December
30, 2001, at 2:48 p.m. He was 57, and by his own admission just hitting
his stride as an architect. He believed--as earlier generations used to--that
architects need the weight of life and experience before they can design
with empathy, technical understanding, and political savvy. Though his life
was cut short, his influence is likely to endure. And I want to make
sure of that.
Today, as architecture and design schools search for meaning, connection,
and relevance, Mockbee's realistic, common-sense approach provides powerful
inspiration. It's the guiding light behind my work in organizing the Metropolis
Conference at the ICFF: Integrating Green into Design Education, on May
20, 2002, in New York City.
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