Many places are celebrating Architecture Month this year
Larry Schulman of Hyatt with me in 2006, discussing architectural design trends. Larry was enthusiastic about the importance of good design.
For many years, I helped the Orlando AIA celebrate Architecture Month with an intensive program of events. We toured new buildings, we spoke at high schools, we sponsored talks given by visiting architects. Barton Myers, FAIA, was in town for the Dr. Phillips Performaing Arts Center and he talked to a group we arranged to tour his giant study model in the basement of the Round Building (as it was affectionately known before the City demolished it).
Later, it became obvious we had enough stuff to publish an Architectural Guidebook of Central Florida. It was fascinating to research topics such as the design history of Winter Park, the architecture of Sarasota School great Gene Leedy, FAIA, and help write and edit the book. The book was a lot of work by Bob Travelstead, Greg Stock, and many others, and it came it out just in time for the 2017 National AIA convention right here in Orlando.
While President of the AIA, I attended every single event. Sometimes more than one a night. The purpose of this is to raise awareness of good design to the general public. I remember one year I was set to give a talk at the downtown Public Library at 7pm. As night fell I jumped in the car and found it terrifically difficult to get the short distance to the Library Garage, and ended up parking somewhere on the other side of Lake Eola, jogging around the lake. Karen English at that time was the Executive Director of the AIA, and had gotten there early. I rolled in, she handed me the microphone, and with no time to catch my breath, I got up on stage and started the show.
The audience had about 5 people in it. By this time it was late October, and we had a short slide show and thanked all our sponsors. As I got down from stage I commented to Karen about the traffic. She kind of chuckled in her Karen way, and said "that's probably why this wasn't well attended. Barack Obama's speaking at the Bob Carr."
If the worst thing about Architecture Month is being upstaged by the President of the United States, it isn't so bad. I later helped co-found the Orlando Foundation for Architecture which is a parallel organization to the AIA, dedicated to raising awareness of good design to the general public. In this way, the messages of Architecture Month are kind of shared.
This year, we have an INTERNET FEAST of Architecture Month Programs. Here are a few:
Archtober NYC, with a few interesting items such as Architectural Record's design innovation event (tonight) and on October 2, Building of the Day: 520 Fifth Avenue.
AIA Los Angeles Architecture Month: This encompasses Orange County California, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs with tours, lectures and classes. In 2022 AIA Los Angeles featured Cooking with Electric to Reduce your Carbon Footprint. Mmmm.
Architecture Month 2024 | DAC kicks off with a Woolly Mammoth Building Tour on October 2. While AIA Los Angeles seems to concentrate on midcentury modern, AIA DC is decidedly brutalist-focused with Saturday's "DC Brutalism Walking Tour" organized by the National Building Museum. The DC chapter has a lot of sketching, photography and model building workshops for high school students, which look pretty fun.
AIA Honolulu's Architecture Month is my sentimental favorite, having been a chapter member for several years. Getting into the aloha spirit means not rushing things. They're probably loading their website between shave ice treats and poi sampling. We'll check back later to see how it's coming.
AIA Baltimore Architecture Month does it right, with a kickoff Wednesday at Hotel Ulysses' Ash Bar. Baltimore's got some great architecture and it is terrific to see freelance photographers and independent historians helping document the stories and buildings of this town.
This month, Futurama will feature art and design stories like always, and we'll try a Building of the Day. I have one or two in mind already. If you have a favorite Building of the Day, please write to rtreep@richardreep.org and we'll be sure to share it!
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