In 1992 Samuel Mockbee founded an institution in remote South Alabama, which became renowned: critics have already compared the “Rural Studio” with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West. But Mockbee’s institution is different, more social: the students of the Rural Studio do not only plan residential and community buildings for the poor, primarily coloured residents of the Hale County, they also construct these houses themselves and raise funds. Over the last 13 years they have repeatedly proved that it is possible to construct functional and aesthetically appealing residential buildings with 35,000 or 30,000, and sometimes only 5,000 dollars.
“Proceed and be bold” documents the Studio’s last four years since the death of its founder “Sambo” Mockbee. The only weak point of the book is the rather abrupt introduction: readers not aware of the Rural Studio and skipping the front blurb have difficulties keeping up with the narrative speed. The book somehow clings to the openness of the people in America’s South: without further ado Andrea Oppenheimer Dean comes to the present, the background story is initially of little interest. Repeatedly the author lets the persons concerned speak: Mockbee’s successor Andrew Freear, the tutors, the students and their clients, to whom they often develop intense personal relationships.
The photographs by Timothy Hursley document the students’ (sometimes excessive) wealth of ideas, which is expressed in house walls from carpet tiles or tyres filled with concrete. It is hard to imagine a stronger contrast between the European architectural education, which is sometimes out of touch with practice, and the symbiotic co-operation of teachers, students and the local society, which has taken shape in the work of the Rural Studio. It also becomes apparent, how far building in times of architectural pride and joy has departed from its original objectives: to give shelter to people. However, so the author concludes, in the meantime a change is noticeable in the planning culture of the Rural Studio: the buildings are adjusted to the mainstream, are less improvised and principally larger. The latest example is a centre for the aged for more than one hundred inhabitants, which was completed by the Rural Studio in Akron.
How will the development continue? Stephen Freear doesn’t know the answer. Not even Samuel Mockbee has ever had a “master plan” for the Rural Studio, he says. It is almost to be hoped that despite this book and several exhibitions lately presenting the work of the Rural Studio, the public interest keeps within bounds so that this unique institution can peacefully continue to pursue its work.