#frank harmon

Also, the eyes of our darling up top there - mmm.

The Huberman-Bromer Residence in the Uwharrie Mountains. 

Herring "Now is the time of the herring," a friend said recently. The Atlantic herring, he meant, which swim from the Atlantic Ocean to spawn in the rivers of eastern North Carolina from February to April each year. And so a group of us left Raleigh to drive two hours to the Cypress Grill on the Roanoke River in Jamesville, NC, for a herring dinner. The lights of snazzy fast food diners winked as we rode along highway 64E. When we reached our destination, dusk had come to the river. An eagle flew upstream and descended to a tupelo and cypress forest on the opposite bank. For centuries, herring were essential to eastern North Carolina culture, spawning in such numbers that their silver bodies were thick as grits in the tea-colored water of the Roanoke River. Today they’re over-harvested or killed by pollution, so the fish cooking up that night came from South Carolina. The Cypress Grill was a cozy, wooden shack. Light from its windows glittered on the river. Most of us ate herring with a piece of rock (rockfish). I recommend the herring roe and a slice of lemon pie.

Business of Architecture's host, EnochSears,  got with Frank Harmon FAIA and they tackled some questions that any young architects might have! Pay attention all you young professionals, this experience can definitely help you! Watch it here. 

Mountain Time Snow and rain have eroded the Blue Ridge Mountains for millennia. A farmer built this barn, with its pillow-shaped roof, near Marion, NC sometime in the last 100 years. It's tempting to think that the farmer shaped the roof to look like the mountains, but his goal was more practical. He was storing hay for cows and he simply shaped the roof like a pile of hay. Barns in the Blue Ridge Mountains varied in shape from one valley to the next. Arched roofs were common near Marion, but in the next valley gable roofs prevailed. Further up the mountain shed roofs straddled the hills. Like barns, a banjo tune would vary from one holler to the next. So would cornbread fritters. And what was catawampus in one place was hip-skeltered in another. Barns are like the rocks a geologist picks up. They tell a story about their time and location. Walmart and satellite dishes will tell our story The craftsman who made this barn is forgotten, yet he was obviously proud of his work. I can imagine him building and shaping it, making sure the edges were straight. If the roof is repaired it will last another 100 years.

Van Gogh's Window:     The window at the upper right opened from Vincent Van Gogh's room. From this window Van Gogh contemplated the garden of Asile St. Paul de Mausole, the asylum near St. Remy where he stayed for 12 months beginning in May 1889. He looked out over olive groves, apricot and almond trees, a wheat field and the Apilles mountains. In the evening, shadows lay over the garden.   Van Gogh was encouraged by the calmness and understanding of the medical staff at Asile St. Paul de Mausole. Here he painted Starry Night and other legendary works. He left on May 16, 1890, when the apricot trees were blooming and the wheat field was green. He killed himself 71 days later.   Care for patients with mental illness continues to this day at Asile St. Paul de Mausole. Visitors to the asylum may be curious about a sign posted at the entry gate, however: "Any exit will be final. Merci."

As war raged, the First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana was consecrated in 1942. It stood in contrast to the elaborate style of Classical and Victorian churches of the time. It was designed by Eliel Saarinen, who embraced  modern architecture as an antidote to the superstition and close-minded society that led to World War I.    Saarinen's contemporary Hannah Arendt wrote: "Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?"   The congregation asked Saarinen to design a church where even the most humble member "would feel at home there and able to worship her god." He designed walls that were unadorned, windows the proportion of tree trunks, and a sanctuary suffused in daylight. On a recent Sunday morning the sun streamed thru its east windows and bathed the congregation in sunlight.   We continue to witness the frailty of reason in the face of war. But if clichés and adherence to conventional forms have served to protect us against reality, as Arendt said, the First Christian Church remains an oasis of self awareness.