In June, more than 200 architects, historians, educators, and critics gathered on architect Brian MacKay-Lyons’ farm in Nova Scotia. The farm has been home of Ghost Lab, the research arm of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, since 1994. It also is a forum for colleagues and friends who share the firm’s devotion to place, craft, and community. Their virtual discussions became reality when 25 members of the group presented keynotes, panels, and presentations over a three-day period to a sold-out crowd. The impressive roster of speakers included Kenneth Frampton; Glenn Murcutt; Juhani Pallasmaa; Rick Joy, FAIA; Ted Flato, FAIA; Deborah Berke, FAIA, LEED AP; Tom Kundig, FAIA; and many more.
“I’ve known most of these people as close colleagues and friends for a long time,” says MacKay-Lyons, Hon. FAIA, about the speakers. “I’ve known Glenn since 1987, for example, and have done several projects with him.” Mixing historians, educators, and critics with practicing architects (or practicing architects who also are educators and historians) intrigued MacKay-Lyons. Specific themes for the conference included the triumvirate of place, craft, and community, but woven throughout was an ongoing conversation about the state of the profession in both education and practice. “The underlying theme was education, but it was elusive, so it was always dealt with obliquely,” says presenter Marlon Blackwell, FAIA. “I think the biggest challenge will be how to leverage all of this great information and conversation into a solid form of curriculum.”
Verbatim
Brian MacKay-Lyons shares the reasons why he invested his firm’s resources in producing this year’s International Ghost conference and some of his favorite highlights from the event.
Why did you decide to do an actual conference?
We’ve always casually talked about bringing architects and historians together from our Ghost Lab participants. We started the Ghost project as a critique of what was happening at that time in architectural education. That same sense of critique was embedded in the conference. This was a chance to really commiserate about and formulate a strong position on our discipline in both academia and practice.
What were the guiding principals of the presentations?
There were three themes for the conference, which we’re using to try to describe the whole field. It was a one-room schoolhouse idea. The themes—place, craft, and community—were a rough gut at what I thought Ghost Lab was always stressing, and they are also issues I think are always relevant. Plus, there’s timeliness about them now in that they have weakened in practice and education.
Can you elaborate on what those themes entail?
Under place you can cover climate, material, culture, landscape, and urbanism. Basically, the big macro issues that affect the world. That idea has a new impetus behind it in this environmentalism push we’re experiencing, but these big issues don’t really come and go. It’s always best practice to have good manners when you build in a landscape it’s not a new fashion.
Craft represents the fact that it’s always been a responsibility of architects to build well, to craft their buildings to last. Society has always looked to us for that. But in education today, you have fewer and fewer practicing architects able to teach, so the role of materiality has reached a low level because the people teaching don’t know a lot about it. This disembodiment of the discipline between practice and academia is happening in a lot of disciplines.
The sense of community here was strong without being reductive. There’s usually either consensus or discord with gatherings like this, but we had both. We want to bottle all of this communal energy into the book. Our goal is to express the ideas of all 25 speakers and the attendees without artificially forcing a consensus.
What were some of your favorite moments or ideas that came from the conference?
There was a lot of clarity in the energy of the ideas put forth. I think it came from the kind of wisdom of the elders that we had in our speakers. They chose their ideas and words thoughtfully, and that affected how others expressed themselves. Glenn’s talk was interesting because he did a Q-&-A since he’d lost his son to cancer a few weeks earlier and didn’t feel up to a straightforward lecture. One question was how would he change architectural education. He talked about studying natural processes and how nature informs design and craftsmanship.
Glenn also talked about economy and he asked what is craft? That led to a very challenging discussion. Is craft Rural Studio going out and building a well-designed, durable house for $20,000, or is it Shim-Sutcliffe or Tom Kundig going out and building these exquisite buildings? Buildings have to be well made, but maybe there’s a limit to how lavish they should be? But I invited everyone here because of the quality of their work. We can’t trade away our discipline for good intentions of any kind.
Blackwell goes on to add that he enjoyed hearing from architects outside the U.S. and Canada, and realizing that they have similar approaches and familiar challenges. “The presenters were grouped according to a theme, which helped us to think about a specific emphasis,” he explains. “But we all shared this approach of generating architecture from ecology and culture and translating that into building anywhere at any scale.” Blackwell also was inspired by seeing how that shared approach can translate into fundamentally different styles and methods of dealing with the circumstances faced by all architects. “It has to do with more than talent,” he says. “It has to do with will, with how you build. It was refreshingly noncynical how we all turn those circumstances into opportunities.”
In addition to formal presentations, conference attendees enjoyed a retreatlike atmosphere of dining and dancing with respected peers in a remote setting, which added to the feel of a large group discussion. According to MacKay-Lyons and Blackwell, there was consensus and discord throughout the conference without either getting out of hand. No one took themselves too seriously and even the surroundings inspired interesting discussions. “Brigitte Shim said this place expresses why we’re here, the craft is found in these buildings, and here we are a community, so we’re acting out the themes of this conference” MacKay-Lyons recounts.
A traveling exhibition and a book are being produced from the conference materials. The exhibition is already in its trial stages and much of the material for the book is collected. MacKay-Lyons isn’t sure what other lasting effects the gathering will have on the profession, but he feels good about what was accomplished during those three days. “The spirit of trust there was amazing,” he says, adding that “people came for the whole thing—no one came and went—and that helped achieve a kind of friendship and geniality that is so valuable.”
Our sister publication ARCHITECT sent someone to the conference. To read their coverage, click here.
