Tag Archive for: Events

Frank Harmon, his buildings and principles, are on display now in the exhibition “A SOUTH FORTY: Contemporary Architecture and Design in the American South” in Venice, Italy

architecture exhibit

“Across the architectural profession, Frank Harmon, FAIA, is the face of North Carolina architecture…[He] has brought to a national audience a glimpse of the unique character and architectural culture of his home state.”

Architect Jeffrey Lee, FAIA, wrote that assessment in his letter to nominate Frank for the 2013 NCAIA Gold Medal. This year, Frank and the work he produced in his former firm Frank Harmon Architect (he is now retired) are included in a special exhibition coinciding with the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale entitled “A SOUTH FORTY: Contemporary Architecture and Design in the American South.” The exhibition is installed in the Great Hall at Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy.

The Venice Biennale, Italian Società di Cultura la Biennale di Venezia, is an international art exhibition featuring architecture, visual arts, cinema, dance, music, and theater. It is held in the Castello district of Venice every two years during the summer. On the preview days, 25,000 artists, collectors, curators, museum directors, and journalists attend, followed by 600,000 visitors in the months after.

The Fay Jones School of Architecture & Design at the University of Arkansas, along with the literary journal Oxford American and modus studio in Fayetteville, AR, organized A SOUTH FORTY “to provide an overview of the current vitality of contemporary architecture and design in the American South…” by looking at the work and principles of architects who practice in the region.”

The criteria for a regional architect’s work to be included in the exhibition reads like a brief narrative of Frank’s projects and the principles that guided him: “…place-based design, attentive to the necessities of climate, materials, labor, and purpose, but also attentive to overlooked or undervalued typologies, constituencies, and locales.”

Awakening

Frank credits his friend and mentor, the late Harwell Hamilton Harris, with his professional osmosis from a modernist architect to a modern regionalist architect who embraces the environmentally sustainable principle of designing houses and buildings based on the context, customs, climate, geology, geography, and topography in a particular region. Regionally appropriate structures use regionally practical materials and feature elements specific to climatic needs.

Harris moved to Raleigh from California in 1962 to teach at NC State University’s School of Design (now College of Design). According to Frank, Harwell taught his students that the most important assets of a region are “its free minds, its imagination, its stake in the future, its energy, and, last of all, its climate, its topography, and the particular kind of sticks and stones it has to build with.”

Frank, in turn, has shared this wisdom with his own architecture students at NC State (some are included in the Venice exhibition), with interns and staff in his former firm, and with fellow practitioners through multiple seminars at state, regional, and national AIA conventions.

sketches by Frank Harmon

From his book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See — Frank’s sketch of an old barn in Deltaville, VA.

Along with Harwell Harris’s influence, Frank credits his study of vernacular architecture, especially old barns and farmhouses throughout the rural South, with his dedication to sustainable, regionally appropriate design. “I’ve learned more about architecture from studying old barns than I ever did in a classroom,” he tells his audiences.

A prime example of his regionally appropriate methodology is the multi-award-winning  Iron Studio that Frank designed for the Penland School of Arts & Crafts in the North Carolina mountains in 2000. That project was featured in Architectural Record in 2014 and is showcased in A SOUTH FORTY.

The Venice Biennale runs through November 21. For more information, click here.

To see a full gallery of Frank’s work, visit www.frankharmon.com.

Frank Harmon on US Modernist Radio

“And now for a few minutes with Frank Harmon…”

Frank Harmon Native Places

FRANK HARMON, FAIA (photo by William Morgan)

Beginning May 4th at 3 p.m., Frank Harmon, FAIA, will become a recurring guest on US Modernist Radio: Architecture You Love, the popular podcast hosted by George Smart and Frank King.

Once a month, Smart will introduce the Raleigh architect/author with the tagline “And now for a few minutes with Frank Harmon.” Frank will then read excerpts from his book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See.

“US Modernist Radio is a bright spot in my day,” Frank said. “What a wonderful way to keep in touch with architects everywhere.

Frank Harmon on US Modernist Radio

 About the Podcast:

George Smart, founder and president of the non-profit organization NC Modernist Houses, created US Modernist Radio to appeal to midcentury modern design enthusiasts.  In July 2019, it was included in Dwell magazine’s “Top 9 Design and Architecture Podcasts To Tune Into.”

US Modernist Radio “is both entertaining but informative, and hosts George Smart and Frank King spend each episode interviewing architects, designers, historians, preservationists, advocacy experts, museum curators, homeowners, and others—just about anyone who “owns, creates, dreams about, preserves, loves, and hates Modernist architecture, the most exciting and controversial buildings in the world.” Click here to listen via an assortment of apps. The live shows load at 3 p.m.

For more information on Frank and Native Places, visit nativeplacesthebook.com.

Flyleaf Books Welcomes Architect/Author Frank Harmon and ‘Native Places’ February 10th

Multi-award-winning architect/author Frank Harmon, FAIA, who designed the NC Botanical Garden Visitor Education Center on Old Mason Farm Road, will be in Chapel Hill on Sunday, February 10, when Flyleaf Books hosts a special event to celebrate his new book, Native Places: Drawing as a Way of Seeing.

Free and open to the public, the event will begin at 2 pm when Chapel Hill architect Phil Szostak, FAIA, introduces his friend, colleague, and mentor. Harmon will then discuss the genesis of his book and his passion for sketching in a 20-minute presentation. After a Q&A session with the audience, he will sign copies of Native Places, which will be available for purchase at Flyleaf.

Delight in Ordinary Places 

Published by ORO Editions, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See is a collection of 64 of Harmon’s watercolor sketches paired with 200-word essays he’s written about architecture, nature, everyday objects and places that first appeared on his popular online journal NativePlaces.org. The sketches convey the delight he finds in ordinary places. The short essays, inspired by the sketches, offer his fresh interpretations of what most people take for granted.

Harmon’s goal for Native Places is, in fact, “to transform the way we see,” he says, and to promote his belief that hand drawing offers “an opportunity to develop a natural grace in the way we view the world and take part in it.” He will explain both concepts in his presentation.

“Each essay and corresponding drawing helped me appreciate the beauty in all types of buildings and the natural world that surrounds them.”

What others are saying about Native Places

In a letter to Harmon, poet, author, and former North Carolina poet laureate Fred Chappell wrote, “Native Places…has afforded me happy pleasures, different from any that I have before derived from a book. It is unusual in many ways, one of which is that it defies strict classification. It is a sketchbook, a memoir, travel journal, aesthetic experiment, a collection of small familiar essays, and maybe in some respects even a manifesto.”

“It’s accessible and beautiful writing that’s thought-provoking, spiritual and uplifting. It’s like he knew what we needed,” said Julieta Sherk, landscape architect, professor, and J. William Fulbright Global Scholar.

And among the many positive reviews on Amazon, one reader offers: “This book is inspiring, educational and uplifting. Each essay and corresponding drawing helped me appreciate the beauty in all types of buildings and the natural world that surrounds them. During these troubled times, we need books like this to remind us to take time to appreciate our surroundings. The combination of Frank Harmon’s artwork and his well-written essays opened my eyes to a new and positive way of viewing architecture and nature.”

Flyleaf Books is located at 752 MLK Jr. Boulevard, Chapel Hill. For more information visit www.flyleafbooks.com (919-942-7373).

For more details on Frank Harmon and Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See, visit the book’s website, nativeplacesthebook.com, and Facebook page.

Scuppernong Books in Greensboro Welcomes Native Son Frank Harmon and ‘Native Places’ on January 27

Frank sketching

FRANK HARMON (PHOTO BY CHRISTINE SIMELOFF)

Multi-award-winning architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, grew up in the 1950s on Rolling Road in Greensboro. In the introduction to his new critically acclaimed book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See, Harmon relates that he “discovered reading in the Greensboro Public Library” and that he “learned most of what I needed to know to be an architect” playing by his favorite stream, which “ran between rocky banks in East Greenway Park.”

A professor in the NC State University College of Design as well as a practicing architect, Frank Harmon has called Raleigh home for many decades. But on Sunday, January 27, he will return to his hometown when Scuppernong Books hosts a special book-signing event for Native Places and its native son. Free and open to the public, the book-signing event will begin at 3 pm.

Van Gogh’s window

Delight in Ordinary Places: 

Published by ORO Editions, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See is a collection of 64 of Harmon’s watercolor sketches paired with brief essays he’s written about architecture, nature, and everyday objects and places that first appeared on his popular online journal NativePlaces.org. The sketches convey the delight he finds in ordinary places. The short essays, inspired by the sketches, offer his fresh interpretations of what most people take for granted.

Harmon’s goal for Native Places is, in fact, “to transform the way we see,” he says, and to promote his belief that hand drawing offers “an opportunity to develop a natural grace in the way we view the world and take part in it.” He will explain both concepts in his presentation.

What others are saying about Native Places: 

In a letter to the Harmon, poet, author, and former North Carolina poet laureate Fred Chappell wrote, “Native Places…has afforded me happy pleasures, different from any that I have before derived from a book. It is unusual in many ways, one of which is that it defies strict classification. It is a sketchbook, a memoir, travel journal, aesthetic experiment, a collection of small familiar essays, and maybe in some respects even a manifesto.”

Mike Welton, the architecture critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, calls Harmon’s book “delightful” and suggests that it is “destined to change how we see this world.”

Tom Kundig, FAIA, of Olsen Kundig Architects in Seattle, WA, praises Harmon and his book for “reminding us in brilliant, thoughtful, quiet meditation our unbelievable luck to be alive and to think. A masterful legacy on all levels.”

Scuppernong Books is located at 304 South Elm Street. For more information: www.scuppernongbooks.coim (336-763-1919).

For more details on Frank Harmon and Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See, visit the book’s website (nativeplacesthebook.com) and Facebook page.

Frank Harmon Times Two on January 22: “The State of Things” and The Regulator Bookshop host the architect/author and his new book, ‘Native Places’

 

At noon on Tuesday, January 22, award-winning architect-turned-author Frank Harmon will join Frank Stasio on the latter’s live public radio show “The State of Things” (91.5 FM) at noon. That evening, at 7 p.m., Harmon will join book enthusiasts at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham when the store’s owners, Wander Lorentz de Haas and Elliot Berger, host a book-signing event with Durham architect Ellen Cassilly introducing the author.

Both occasions will celebrate Harmon’s new, critically acclaimed book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See.

Published by ORO Editions, Native Places is a collection of 64 of Harmon’s watercolor sketches paired with 200-word essays he’s written about architecture, nature, and everyday objects and places that first appeared in his popular online journal NativePlaces.org. The sketches convey the delight he finds in ordinary places and things. The short essays, inspired by the sketches, offer his fresh interpretations of what most people take for granted — from an old screen door on the Carolina coast to a handmade plow in Provence.

Harmon’s goal for Native Places is, in fact, “to transform the way we see,” he says, and to promote his belief that hand drawing offers “an opportunity to develop a natural grace in the way we view the world and take part in it.”

On January 22, he will explain both concepts at The Regulator and on “The State of Things.”

“Leonardo Da Vinci said that drawing was a way to understand the world,” Harmon offers. “The point is not to make a pretty drawing. The point is to draw what you see.”

*     *     *

Produced by North Carolina Public Radio on WUNC-FM, “The State of Things” spotlights North Carolina issues, personalities, and places. The live show featuring Frank Harmon will air at noon then be rebroadcast at 8 pm.

Located at 720 Ninth Street, The Regulator Bookshop has been a popular destination for Durham book enthusiasts since John Valentine and Tom Campbell founded the store in 1976. Employees there for many years, Wander Lorentz de Haas and Elliot Berger bought The Regulator in March of 2018.

The Regulator event is free and open to the public and copies of Harmon’s book will be available for purchase. For more information: regulatorbookshop.com (919-286-2700).

For more information on Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See and to keep up with future events, visit nativeplacesthebook.com and the book’s Facebook page.

 

Frank Harmon at Blue Bicycle Books

Charleston’s Blue Bicycle Books Hosts Architect/Author Frank Harmon and ‘Native Places’ on January 17.

Frank Harmon at Blue Bicycle Books

Architect and author Frank Harmon, FAIA, who designed the modern, award-winning Sunday School addition to the historic Circular Congregational Church in Charleston and the “Seven Sisters” residence on St. Helena Island, will present his new, critically acclaimed book  Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See when Blue Bicycle Books hosts a book-signing event on Thursday, January 17, beginning at 5 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the event will begin with an introduction of the Raleigh, NC-based author by South Carolina architect Whitney Powers. Harmon will then give a presentation about his book and his passion for hand sketching. After a Q&A with the audience, he will sign copies of Native Places, which will be available for purchase in the store.

Native Places by Frank HarmonDelight in Ordinary Places:  Published by ORO Editions, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See is a collection of 64 of Harmon’s watercolor sketches paired with brief essays he’s written about architecture, everyday objects and sites, and nature that first appeared on his internationally popular blog NativePlaces.org. The sketches convey the delight he finds in ordinary places. The short essays, inspired by the sketches, offer his fresh interpretations of what most people take for granted.

Harmon’s goal for Native Places is, in fact, “to transform the way we see,” he says, and to promote his belief that hand drawing offers “an opportunity to develop a natural grace in the way we view the world and take part in it.” He will explain both concepts in his presentation.

What others are saying about Native Places: In his review of the book, Charles Linn, FAIA, architect, writer, and former deputy editor of Architectural Record, wrote, “For those who love drawing, seek enlightenment and inspiration from the things they may pass by every day, and perhaps want to capture them in their own sketchbooks, I give Native Places my highest recommendation.” (Linn also helped Harmon select and organize the sketch-essay pairs for the book.)

Mike Welton, architecture critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, calls Harmon’s book “delightful” and suggests that it is “destined to change how we see this world.”

Tom Kundig, FAIA, of Olsen Kundig Architects in Seattle, WA, praises Harmon and his book for “reminding us in brilliant, thoughtful, quiet meditation our unbelievable luck to be alive and to think. A masterful legacy on all levels.”

Owned and operated by Jonathan Sanchez, Blue Bicycle Books is located at 420 King Street, Charleston, SC 29403 (843.722.2666); bluebicyclebooks.com.

For more details on Frank Harmon and Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See, visit the book’s website (nativeplacesthebook.com) and Facebook page.

Frank Harmon book signing at Edisto Art Guild

Edisto Art Guild to Host Architect/Author Frank Harmon and ‘Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See’

Frank Harmon book signing at Edisto Art GuildArchitect and author Frank Harmon, FAIA, who designed the modern, award-winning Sunday School addition to the historic Circular Congregational Church in Charleston and the “Seven Sisters” residence on St. Helena Island, will present his new, critically acclaimed book  Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See when the Edisto Art Guild hosts a book-signing event on Monday, January 14, in the Edisto Beach Civic Center.

Free and open to the public, the Art Guild’s event will begin at 6:30 pm when South Carolina architect Lloyd Bray introduces the Raleigh, NC-based author. Harmon will then give a presentation about his book and his passion for hand sketching. After a Q&A with the audience, he will sign copies of Native Places, which will be available for purchase in the civic center.

Delight in Ordinary Places:  Published by ORO Editions, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See is a collection of 64 of Harmon’s watercolor sketches paired with brief essays he’s written about architecture, everyday objects and sites, and nature that first appeared on his internationally popular blog NativePlaces.org. The sketches convey the delight he finds in ordinary places. The short essays, inspired by the sketches, offer his fresh interpretations of what most people take for granted.

Harmon’s goal for Native Places is, in fact, “to transform the way we see,” he says, and to promote his belief that hand drawing offers “an opportunity to develop a natural grace in the way we view the world and take part in it.” He will explain both concepts in his presentation.

What others are saying about Native Places: In a letter to the author, Fred Chappell, poet, author, and former North Carolina poet laureate, wrote, “Native Places…has afforded me happy pleasures, different from any that I have before derived from a book. It is unusual in many ways, one of which is that it defies strict classification. It is a sketchbook, a memoir, travel journal, aesthetic experiment, a collection of small familiar essays, and maybe in some respects even a manifesto.”

Mike Welton, the architecture critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, calls Harmon’s book “delightful” and suggests that it is “destined to change how we see this world.”

Tom Kundig, FAIA, of Olsen Kundig Architects in Seattle, WA, praises Harmon and his book for “reminding us in brilliant, thoughtful, quiet meditation our unbelievable luck to be alive and to think. A masterful legacy on all levels.”

The Edisto Beach Civic Center is located at 42 Station Court, Edisto Island, SC. (edistoartguild@gmail.com)

For more details on Frank Harmon and Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See, visit the book’s website (nativeplacesthebook.com) and Facebook page.

So and So Books

So & So Books Hosts An Afternoon with Frank Harmon – a Book Signing event for The Author and ‘Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See’

Native Places

                                                Frank Harmon (Photo by William Morgan)

November 21, 2018 (Raleigh NC) —  So & So Books, an independent bookstore in downtown Raleigh’s trendy Person Street commercial district, will host a book-signing event for architect/author Frank Harmon, FAIA, and his new book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to Seeon Saturday, December 1.

Beginning at 5 p.m., Harmon will discuss his book and his passion for hand sketching. After a Q&A with the audience, he will sign copies of Native Places, which will be available for purchase in So & So Books.

Delight in Ordinary Places

Published by ORO Editions, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See is a collection of 64 of Harmon’s watercolor sketches paired with brief essays he’s written about architecture, everyday objects and sites, and nature. The sketches convey the delight he finds in ordinary places. The short essays, inspired by the sketches, offer his fresh interpretations of what most take for granted.

Harmon’s goal for Native Places is, in fact, “to transform the way we see,” he says, and to promote his belief that hand drawing offers “an opportunity to develop a natural grace in the way we view the world and take part in it.” He will explain both concepts in his presentation.

Bookstore + design studio

So & So Books shares space with in situ studio. One of the studio’s founders, Erin Sterling Lewis, AIA, will introduce the author at the event. Sterling Lewis worked with Harmon in his multi-award-winning architecture firm for several years before he retired. She considers him her “greatest mentor,” she said recently, and “remains grateful every day for the opportunities he afforded me during my time at Frank Harmon Architect.”

Praise for Native Places

In her review of Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See,, author and entomologist Eleanor Spicer Rice, PhD., wrote, “Like a child picking up fistfuls of seemingly commonplace stones, Harmon gathers places in all their forms and meanings and thoughtfully lays them in his book, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary and everyday life takes on a new texture and meaning.”

In a letter to Harmon, Fred Chappell, former North Carolina Poet Laureate, offered, “Native Places…has afforded me happy pleasures, different from any that I have before derived from a book.”

Mike Welton, architecture critic for the News & Observer, called Harmon’s book “delightful” and suggested that it is “destined to change how we see this world.”

So & So Books is located at 704 North Person Street, Raleigh 27604 (919-426-9502). For more information, visit the store’s Facebook page.

For more details on Frank Harmon and Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See, visit the book’s website: http://nativeplacesthebook.com.