Meet The Author & Book Signing Event in
Raleigh’s Premier Bookstore Saturday, September 15.

August 21, 2018 (Raleigh, NC) Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh’s premier independent book store, has been nationally respected and locally beloved for nearly three decades.

Award-winning architect and author Frank Harmon is, as a colleague once wrote, “the face of North Carolina architecture…[who] has brought to a national audience a glimpse of the unique character and architectural culture of his home state.”

How fitting, then, that the two will come together on Saturday, September 15th, beginning at 4 pm. as Quail Ridge Books in North Hills hosts the official release of Harmon’s new book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See.

To celebrate the occasion, Quail Ridge will hold a Meet The Author & Book Signing event with Frank Harmon. Best-selling North Carolina author Angela Davis-Gardner (Forms of Shelter, Butterfly’s Child, etc.) will introduce Harmon to the audience.

Published by ORO Editions, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See is a collection of 64 watercolor sketches paired with brief essays about architecture, landscape, everyday objects, and nature. The sketches convey the delight the author finds in ordinary places. The 200-word essays, inspired by the sketches, offer his fresh interpretations of what readers might have taken for granted.

“My goal has always been to change the way we see,” Harmon said, referring to his popular blog NativePlaces.org, which inspired the book. “I’d like to enable people to notice what’s in their backyards. And it’s satisfying to give people something quiet in their morning inbox amongst the deluge of emails.”

Why did he decide to create a book out of his blog’s sketches and essays? He chuckled. “Because so many people kept asking me, ‘When are you going to make Native Places into a book?’”

For the event, Harmon will give a short talk on his new book, take questions from the audience, then sign copies that will be available for purchase exclusively at Quail Ridge Books that day.

Early editions may be preordered from now until September 16th also exclusively through Quail Ridge.

About Quail Ridge: The late Nancy Olsen founded Quail Ridge Books in 1984 in Ridgewood Shopping Center. Olsen sold the store to Lisa Poole in 2013, who eventually relocated it to 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road within the upscale North Hills shopping center.  Click here for more information on the bookstore and the book signing event.

For more information on Native Places: Drawing as a Way of Seeing by Frank Harmon, visit www.nativeplacesthebook.com.

Production Details

Designer: AnLe Bahn
Editor: Charles Linn, FAIA
Publisher: ORO Editions
Binding: Hardbound with Dust Jacket
ISBN: 978-1-940743-45-5
Pages: 168pp published in four colors
Publication Date: September 15, 2018
Size: 7″ x 9″ Landscape
Retail Price: $24.95

About The Author

Frank Harmon, FAIA, has designed sustainable modern buildings across the Southeast for 30 years. He discovered architecture as a child playing in the streams and woods of his native Greensboro, North Carolina. His work engages pressing contemporary issues such as placelessness, sustainability, and restoration of cities and nature. His buildings are specific to their region and use materials such as hurricane-felled cypress and rock from local quarries to connect the structure to its landscape. Airy breezeways, outdoor living spaces, deep overhangs, and wide lawns embody the vernacular legacy of the South while maintaining a distinguished modernism.

Frank is a graduate of the Architectural Association in London and a professor at the North Carolina State University College of Design. He has taught at the Architectural Association and has served as a visiting critic at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and Auburn University’s renowned Rural Studio. For more information on his architectural work, visit www.frankharmon.com.

HI-RESOLUTION IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Media Contact

Kim Weiss, publicist
919.675.8587
blueplatepr@gmail.com