Opening melissa harris Professor Melissa Harris is serving as the Interim Chair of the Architecture Program at Taubman College at the University of Michigan. She teaches drawing and design studio courses. She received her M.Arch degree from the University of California, at Berkeley in 1985.
In the process of scanning this remarkable cross section of work, I am reminded of a few things I love: my leather pencil pouch, my grandmother’s rolling pin, and a Marimekko orange shirt with yellow stripes my father’s colleague brought me from Finland when I was ten. Each of these treasures bears marks of wear; skins rubbed smooth with use, imprints of hands, threads straining to remain fabric, all embossed with traces of a history. It reassures me to see history’s presence in a physical way. The terror of forgetting appears held at bay, even if momentarily. This may be the emotional draw of sustainability: buying and holding, cultivating relationship. A curriculum is also something polished and shined along the way. Traces of the past live in the form of methods—tried and maybe true. Continual revision of how architects are educated, specifically in light of current ecological and economic crises, demands squaring up with our priorities and asking what is essential, what is not. Ways of being in the world—that is what is at stake here. How we get our students to feel more at each moment, help them to see what might be wrung from a barrage of information, contradictory instincts. From these we make things—drawings, models, and buildings. Architecture’s impact has no limits. Some may worry about relevance or prefer a circumscribed medium, but in this work you discover no fear in the collective pursuit of affirming and pushing the boundaries of our discipline. Architecture appears in the most unexpected spots. We find it and make it here at Michigan. It is fleeting, being an interim chair, but my time and place happen to coincide with a moment of bilateral symmetry: 20 years at Michigan, half pre-Taubman and half post. From this axis of symmetry you might think things would shake out clearly into seductive befores and afters. A gradient is more the reality; slow developments, trends taking hold, igniting visions and shaping looks, then losing their grip to the next force or personality. What unites the work presented here as a swath through design life at Michigan? No one vision or ideology, but the commitment to a collaborative and expansive view of architecture. Among many are the recent hands of Tom Buresh. He nourished this wonderful community for eight years—fabulous staff, faculty, and students. You can just about see the baton rounding the corner. 31 March 2010 Ann Arbor
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