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Compiled
by
George
Smart, Jr.
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Hangin' Out with HHH |
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I met Harwell Hamilton Harris in the mid 1980’s when I was in architecture school. I was going to California one summer to look at modern houses. Harwell arranged for me to get into his San Francisco Bay area masterpiece, the Weston Havens house.
This picture is frequently published but you can't actually see the Havens House from this angle in person. It's taken from way below a steep bank. The house has an extremely quiet and modest appearance from the street.
We became friends as I planned my trip. Later he also became my teacher. As I write this, I remember that Harwell wouldn’t want me to gush about him—he would think it undignified. So this will be modest, as he was. I’ve never seen another architect whose personal life so closely resembled his buildings. Harwell, in his old but clean tweed jackets, appeared very modest on the outside. Many of his buildings do as well; they do not announce themselves to the world. One has to get to know them slowly to discover they are full of surprises. Harwell was elegant, as was his architecture. And as in his architecture, there was no clutter in his life, appearance or thinking. His work is unpretentious yet spectacular at the same time—quite a feat! Harwell noticed everything and took nothing for granted. He had special appreciation for clients and gave them much credit for the success of his projects, speaking often of the Havens and Entenza houses. Harwell appreciated kindness, perhaps because he was kind himself. He wrote thank you notes. For everything! One time I gave him a bag of plums from my parents’ old tree. I got the most beautiful handwritten note on brown parchment paper from him. When I think of him now, I always picture him smiling. Harwell had a wide, beautiful smile, and he smiled often. Harwell had friends but was always alone when I visited. The phone never rang. No one knocked at the door. It was the mid-1980’s and modernism was pretty much vilified everywhere you turned. Not that one could really peg Harwell as a “modernist” per se, though he used some of the restrained language of modernism. But at the time I knew him his work was not “in vogue.” I worried that he seemed lonely and perhaps forgotten by much of the outside world. I invited Harwell to a 4th of July celebration and was thrilled that he accepted! 4th of July seemed like Harwell’s holiday. He was so quintessentially the American pioneer to me. In the same way, when I hear the music of Aaron Copeland, its clarity and openness always reminds me of Harwell. We had a great time that 4th, and I saw Harwell loosen up a little. He flirted with my lovely grandmother, who also hailed from California. I was impressed that she held the master spellbound as they discussed gardens and porches for most of the evening. I think Harwell knew how much I appreciated him. I couldn’t help but be the wide-eyed acolyte. How tedious that must have been, but how tolerant he was! Spending time with Harwell, and learning from him, was the best experience of my college years. |
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ARIELLE "AUDIE" CONDORET SCHECHTER (1959-). Born in Algeria, Schechter moved to Chapel Hill in 1962 and has been here ever since. "I was a cubist ever since I was a little girl," she says, and remembers admiring Picasso and Martha Graham from an early age. After graduating from the NC School of the Arts, she attended The Juilliard School of Music playing the bassoon. Next came the NCSU School of Design where she studied with Frank Harmon and Harwell Harris. Her nickname at NCSU was "Modie" for her ardent devotion to modernism, even in the face of much more popular post-modernism. Graduating in 1987, she worked for her dad, noted Chapel Hill architect Jon Condoret, until the mid-1990's. She is now principal in Schechter Studio Architecture. |
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Triangle
Modernist Houses
