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| Detail of the yellow staircase at the James Hunt Library North Carolina State University |
Our
last full day was spent in Raleigh, staying at the home of Mike Cindric and
Susan Toplikar. Mike is an old friend from
my Alfred days, when I was in undergraduate school and Mike was pursuing his
masters in ceramics. Mike always had an
intensity to him, which is centered in his eyes. He resembles the painter John Graham in the
artist’s pencil self-portraits and from what I have read of Graham there was a
similar sensitivity and ferocity.
Despite our nearly 40-year friendship, we have only seen one another a
few times since Alfred. Our
communication has been sparse and usually consists of annual holiday cards sent
to one another with a brief synopsis of the yearly events.
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| NCSU Hunt Library BookBot |
Mike
parlayed his interest in ceramics into a study of architecture and he received
his degree at the North Carolina State University where he met his wife Susan, a
painter who taught design at NCSU. The
two are now retired and Mike is thinking and getting ready to set up a pot shop
in a shared studio. When we were making
plans to travel to North Carolina, it gave us an excuse to reconnect, and meet
Susan for the first time. We had a great
time. Our stay began with meeting at
Mark Hewitt’s home and returning to Raleigh with M & S. The next day we toured
some of the architectural highlights in the Raleigh / Duke area. Mike brought us to the newly constructed James Hunt Library as part of NCSU. This mammoth
facility is a technological wonder representing the future of libraries. Its
fame has something to do with the use of what they refer to as a BookBot, an automated
robot that retrieves requested books from banks of storage bins, all situated
behind glass walls for viewing pleasure.
According to our guide the books are arranged by size and not in numerical
order, in fact the materials are placed rather randomly and tracked by their
bar codes. For those who miss the traditional shelf browsing there is a remedy
for that on the computer, where you can “browse” on line, scrolling through
images of book covers on any selected topic.
The building is a modernist sensation with vast spaces, bright colors
and enough designer furniture to look like a Design within Reach
warehouse. It is a whose who of
architect-designed furniture: Miesian Barcelona chairs, Eames lounges and task
chairs and Arne Jacobsen's Egg Chair, in bright red.
I must admit I couldn’t wrap my head around such a voluminous library or
trying to work in such a vast space. My
mind kept referring to H.H. Richardson’s intimate Crane Library in Quincy, Massachusetts and the quiet
and scholarly atmosphere it creates.
What happened to Sullivan’s “Form Follows Function,” or is the function
here really about fundraising and looking impressive? It was notable that
mention was made that there is now eating and drinking allowed throughout the
facility, and there are catering facilities built in for events. This is indeed
a new concept in function as well.
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| North Carolina Museum addition by Phifer and Partners |
The
next stop was much more in tune with the landscape and functionality, the North Carolina Museum of Art, tactfully designed by Thomas
Phifer and Partners. It is a series of
taut minimal forms with subtle tilts to the individual planes that clad the
exterior. Each was not quite aligned,
but canted to reveal a sliver of mirrored reflection. The interior is open, and clean with coffered
elliptical skylights to bring in soft natural light throughout the structure. Baffles
control the harshest rays of the sun.
The works of all periods and media look great, including an extensive Rodin
Court. Sculpture functions extremely
well in the courtyards between individual wings of the building. Water pools add serenity to the composition
and it sure looks like a nice place to be once the trees leaf out.
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| Mike Cindric's Pavilion as part of the sculpture garden surrounding the North Carolina Museum |
The adjacent park acts as an extension of the Museum
and that is where Mike has installed a pavilion, inextricably architecture and sculpture
and impromptu classroom for all manner of students. The perforated metal and welded frames hover
gently above the sloping grade. Ideally one approaches the pavilion from a
wooded section where an entry ramp leads to this open air “room.” Inspired by another regional architect,
Samuel Mockbee, Mike combined economy, ingenuity and community to bring this
project to life. It is a masterwork of
design that sits beckoning on the sloping knoll.
Sarah had been hatching
a cold and decided to rest at M & S’s after lunch. The three of us took in one more building at
Duke University in nearby Durham, their Nasher Museum, recently completed by Rafael Vinoly. The building is composed of five
separate rectangular boxes deviod of fenestration, but each with an open doorway leading onto shared atrium space. This steel and glass atrium is constructed of two interlocking
structural systems extending from the 5 galleries. While the building exhibits Brutalist muscularity, it functions extremely well
as a museum in the tradition of Louis Kahn served and service. Each gallery volume varies in size and accommodates one coherent show or collection. The atrium provides the
linkage and communal space. Here one
does think of Sullivan’s dictum of form following function – and it
succeeds.
There was a
terrific exhibition of photographs from various collections from around the
state. It had all the usually heavy
hitters, as well as some new names and images.
I was particularly interested in the work of the German photographer,
Andreas Gefeller, who creates a digital composite of multiple images seen from above his subjects. This large photographs, 5'x6' are manipulated and highly controlled to show exactly what the artist wants us to see, but also minute detail. This marvelous image of tree
shadows in a Dusseldorf car park was captivating.
After dropping
Susan off to attend to their new dog, Pepper, we took a quick car tour by the
light of the rising full moon to see various local buildings lit from within or
externally – admiring the glowing marbles used as a matrix in once façade and the shimmering and illuminated wall of another. Mike took
us to see their shared studio and intended future home of his pot shop, currently used by Susan as
her painting studio, the site where, in fact, she created 5 large horse
paintings over a period of a decade. One
last stop took us to the offices of Design Dimensions Inc. where Mike worked
for so many years. He showed us Susan’s
current project a set of colorfully stained chairs with a matching table, which was
waiting for a final coats of finish. This
table and chair project was quite beautiful, each part stained in much the way Susan elaborates and details the boundaries of her paintings. It will be a marvelous presence in their
house, which has an empty dining room waiting for it.
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| Rob, Susan, and Mike |
Throughout our
dinner, last evening, and morning together, there were conversations about our shared interests and the events that has happened in the time between our visits. The whole while we drank coffee and tea from
mugs made by many of our favorite potters.
With hopes for good health and a promise to keep in touch, we concluded
this warm and welcome stay. The best
weather of the whole trip seemed to be unfolding on the morning we left! It was
lovely to traverse North Carolina on our way North, thought it was a long car
day to end our vacation and arrive back in Brooklyn, with a car load full of
pots and our heads full of thoughts.
