the Original Green

   Members of the TradArch listserv met in Charleston to confront some of the issues in face-to-face discussions that had embroiled the listserv over the past year or so. Speculation of possible fistfights preceded the event, as the climate had grown increasinly testy. But while there were some tense moments and a bit of shouting, nobody came to blows, as you can see in these videos.

   Patrick Webb leads introductions of the Charleston attendees.

   Bruce Donnelly leads off the Framing session, which is a sometimes-heated group-wide discussion once it moves to an adjacent room.

   One of the central questions that stirred much controversy over the past year concerned the nature of classicism. Are the canons of classicism fixed? And if so, are they merely historical relics without currency, or can fixed canons inform design today? Or more radically, is classicism a living and evolving language? There is one particularly heated exchange involving Andrés Duany near the end of this segment. 

   Andrés Duany takes the crowd through Léon Krier’s fascinating proposition: it is possible to take the work of Le Corbusier, a self-proclaimed mortal enemy of traditional architecture, and transform his designs into architecture on the Classical-Vernacular Spectrum. Duany proposes that this cross-fertilization of a Corbusian parti with classical character can produce patterns unlikely to be approached in any other way.

   Heterodoxia Architectonica is Andrés Duany’s upcoming treatise that hopes to redefine classical architecture in far broader terms than those by which it is understood to most today.

   Gibson Worsham looks at the nature of living traditions, and how they are illustrated in the organic growth of cities in many small increments over time.

   Town Planner Andrés Duany and Town Founder Vince Graham lead a lively discussion with the group through the streets of I’On on the morning after the segments above.

   ~Steve Mouzon