Commonplaces 2008-20

COMMONPLACES is the second volume of drawings, models, and photography to explore the work of this nationally recognized Boston based firm. As architects with decades of experience, we bring a commitment to creating shared communal places and we understand that a city - or a campus - is an ever- changing phenomenon. Our passion as architects has to do with how those places evolve and our goal is to contribute to a forward-looking vision of what they can become – of how they can be an appropriate addition to what is already there. The opportunities are always based on research, outreach, experimentation, and collaboration between often seemingly divergent interests. But we believe in that collaborative process and we recognize that there will be many fingerprints on what is developed. We also make an honest acknowledgement to ourselves that things could be done differently – that a different proposition could always be made. Brian Healy is an architect who works within the modern American tradition. That is to say, he endeavors to engage the tradition of practice as exemplified by architects such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis I. Kahn. It takes considerable courage to engage the American tradition of practice today, in a time dominated by an obsessive emphasis on universal “globalization,” and the parallel loss of local place, culture and identity. Yet, as Paul Ricoeur stated over forty years ago, while universal civilization is available around the world, and is desired by everyone, anywhere, there is no culture that is not local, that does not belong to a particular place. In his work, Healy endeavors to seek the essence of his discipline, architecture, as defined by its place and time—an American architecture, born of the commonplace and the vernacular, yet at the same time engaging the great works of our modern predecessors. – Robert McCarter