Commonplaces (Working on an American Architecture)

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 40 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