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THE HUMBLE AND THE GIANT Contributors

Bradley W. Johnson Last month at the national AIA conference on architecture, I had the Mary Jane Bolle (“Geometry and
good fortune to see a short presentation by Francis Kéré, an architect
Geography”) is a freelance writer
who was born in Burkina Faso and now practices in Germany. Kéré
whose passion is architecture.
has won many recent accolades—among other things, he’s designing
this year’s annual Serpentine Pavilion in London, and he’ll be
receiving the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture Steven K. Dickens, AIA, LEED AP
(“A House of One’s Own” and “The
from the American Society of Arts and Letters, an award given to a
House of the Four Bell(e)s Rejoins
preeminent architect from any country who has made a significant
Society”) is senior associate with
contribution to architecture as art.
Eric Colbert & Associates.
As artful as his work is, I was most impressed by his first
project, which is a simple school building in Gando, the village where he was born. The
Scott Frank (“Pushing the (Building)
school is built from clay, a humble, local building material. Local residents initially rejected
Envelope”) is president of ARGO
his design on the grounds that clay is normally used as a building material only by the
Communications and former director
poor. Kéré defended his proposal, however, and finally won them over when some of the
of media relations for the AIA.
village elders stepped in and expressed support for his concept. Their intervention was
significant, because, as Kéré said so eloquently, “Old people are the libraries of my culture.
They carry the knowledge.” G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA
(“Alley Armor,” “Less is More
Welcome! and “Try Angles”) is an independent
Rewarding,” “Confidently Deferential,”
curator and writer, as well as senior
curator at the National Building Museum.
He is the editor of ARCHITECTUREDC.
The idea that elders can be the libraries of a culture resonated with me, because
AIA|DC has just completed production work on short video biographies of two of the Ronald O’Rourke (“Convertible
greats of Washington-area architecture—Hugh Newell Jacobsen, FAIA, and Coke Living”) is a regular contributor to
Florance, FAIA. You can find links to the two videos on our blog at aiadc.com. These two ARCHITECTUREDC. His father, Jack
men have been leaders of the Washington-area architecture scene since the 1970s, and in O'Rourke, was an architect in San
many ways helped pave the way for DC’s current boom of good architecture. Francisco for more than four decades.
Jacobsen and Florance are similar in certain respects—both are proponents of
modern architecture, and both chose to work in Washington, even though the city in the
1970s was architecturally very traditional. In putting their ideas into practice,however, the
two men chose different paths. Jacobsen is an auteur with a very recognizable personal
style, while Florance calls himself more an editor-in-chief for a team of
talented individuals.
In their own ways, however, they each have been very influential, not only because of
the building projects they were involved in, but also in terms of the many younger architects
they have guided, mentored, or otherwise influenced over the years. It’s particularly because
of this last point that our new video series is called Giants of Washington Architecture, in
reference to the quote by Isaac Newton: “If I see further, it is by standing on the shoulders
of giants.”
So much of our city as we know it today, we owe to people who took risks, looked at
things in a new way, and made changes. In the future, those changes will be made by people
like Francis Kéré, who took a humble building material and, with the assistance of some
town elders, elevated it to help change a community.
You will see this idea of looking at things in new ways, I hope, in this issue of
ARCHITECTUREDC, which is our annual issue focused on residential architecture. The
pages that follow include a lot of beautiful work, but in addition to good aesthetics,
I hope you’ll see ideas for doing things in new ways, with the aim of making our
community better in some way.
Thank you for supporting AIA|DC, local architects, and the idea that good architecture
can be a force for good. And as always, please feel free to send me a note if you have
any comments.

Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA
Publisher
mfitch@aiadc.com

WELCOME 5