Tag: architecture

Charleston || Aiken-Rhett House

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If these walls could talk…

… they’d tell you a compelling tale of urban life in antebellum Charleston through the eyes of the powerful and wealthy Governor and Mrs. William Aiken, Jr. and the enslaved Africans who maintained their house, property, and way of life.

The place you are about to see belonged to the Aiken family for 142 years before being turned into a Museum, in 1975. Its current owners, the Historic Charleston Foundation that took over in 1995, adopted a preserved-as-found approach, which means all the rooms and surviving furnishings, including the slave quarters, have been preserved – as opposed to restored – and have not been altered since the mid 19th century.

The Aiken-Rhett House, Charleston, SC

April 10th, 2018

Charleston || A welcoming city

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Which one do you prefer?… is the inevitable question every time the trip to Savannah and Charleston comes up.

Well, none…, I mean BOTH!… is my answer because, honestly, these two shouldn’t be compared; I’d rather see them as an old couple, harmoniously complementing each other.

Indeed, if Savannah were a lady of a certain age and of the Victorian era, Charleston would have been an American Gentleman nearing retirement, extremely wealthy, aristocratic, with impeccable taste, elegantly sipping his spiked sweet tea from a crystal glass on his mansion’s porch – a mellow man.

There is a masculine quality about Charleston, I think you will agree, evident as we will walk past some of the city’s glorious mansions, visit a couple of impeccably preserved historic homes and learn about Charleston’s earliest colonial history as we walk through the first permanent English settlement in Carolina.

But, for now, our first impressions: an early afternoon walk on an unexpectedly cool day, through the Historic City Market to the Waterfront and its famous pineapple fountain. Surprised at first, it didn’t take long to learn that, through time, the pineapple became a symbol of friendship and hospitality, a sign often repeated throughout the city as a token of welcome.

Charleston, SC

April 9th, 2018

Savannah || Foxy Loxy Cool

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A coffee shop that doubles up as a Tex-Mex cantina? A strange combination that shouldn’t work, yet in Foxy Loxy it does very well, thank you.

Off the touristy historic district, Foxy Loxy has everything going for it: a quirky interior, delicious offerings, decent coffee and a prime location in Thomas Square, a trendy neighbourhood with antique shops, vintage stores, gastropubs and fine late 19th century homes in various architectural styles. No wonder it is a favourite among locals and SCAD students. And, for the short time we stayed in Savannah, ours too.

And if that’s not enough, the cafe sits right next to the Gingerbread House, an incredible example of Steamboat Gothic architecture, the only one we found in Savannah (scroll down to the last two photos)!

Foxy Loxy Cafe, Savannah

April 2018

Savannah || Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters

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Remember the third site of the Telfair Museums, which we had yet to see? Here it is, in all its grand splendour, starting from the humblest, the slaves’ quarters, walking our way through the garden and into the mansion.

We enter through a magnificent entrance hall into the largest room of the house, which is none other than the formal dining room; we work our way up an elegant staircase which rises to a landing, splits into two flights and, most interestingly, forms a bridge that connects the front and rear portions of the second floor – a rather unique feature, one we have never seen before (or since) in any of the mansions we visited; we peek into the various, lavishly decorated rooms, and the less-than-lavish service ones, in the front and rear halls of the second floor.

The two quarters could not have been more different.

You can find more information about the history, architecture and owners of the Owens-Thomas House, on the museum’s website.

April 5th, 2018

Savannah || The Gryphon

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Speaking of old school charm, southern hospitality and the touch of SCAD being evident all over the historic centre,  this is where it all comes together: the Gryphon. SCAD’s upscale tea room that occupies the ground floor of the Scottish Rite building on Madison Square. Add the mystery of Freemasonry and the fact that the building is still the meeting place for various Masonic lodges, and your afternoon tea acquires that ”something extra” that goes beyond cucumber sandwiches and scones (although I would have been happy with just the scones).

Gryphon

April 5th, 2018

Savannah || The Jepson Center

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Part two of our Telfair Museums round, just across the street from the Telfair Academy is the most recent addition to the group, the Jepson Center. Designed by architect Moshe Safdie (see also the National Gallery of Canada), this sleek art space was opened to the public in 2006. It is home to Savannah’s famous Bird Girl and, on the day of our visit, some pretty powerful works attempting to address the region’s atrocious past relationship with slavery through contemporary art.

Adolfo Alvarado (b. 1982)
Piece, 2018
Mixed media

Adolfo Alvarado (b. 1982)
Tweet Tweet, 2018
Mixed media

“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, the 1994 publication of John Berendt’s bestselling novel with Jack Leigh’s cover photograph featuring Silvia Shaw Judson’s Bird Girl sculpture from Bonaventure cemetery, brought a tidal wave of tourism to Savannah. Devotees of the book flocked to Bonaventure, some trampling the gravesite, which resulted to the removal of Judson’s sculpture to Telfair Museums.

Gene Kogan
Cubist Mirror, 2016
Interactive installation (people standing in front of it, can see themselves as a cubist painting)

Wangshu Sun
Dream of Wings, 2017
Interactive virtual reality installation (people sitting in the chair, open their arms and dream they can fly)

Paul Stephen Benjamin (b. 1966)
God Bless America, 2016
Three-channel video installation, 54 video monitors, DVDs, cables and cords

Paul Stephen Benjamin (b. 1966)
H.Res 194, 2017
Black Light, Black T8 Fixture 32W, Black Cords

”I’m curious about the relationship of the colour black and ”blackness”. What is its visual aspect?”

Benjamin’s new site-specific black light work H.Res 194 connects the medium of black lights with the subject of House Resolution 194, titled ”Apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans” and passed on July 29, 2008 by the 110th Congress. H.Res 194 suggests that shining a light, literally and conceptually, on a difficult past by acknowledging something through gesture, even if symbolic, is a positive step to change and grow as a nation.

Paul Stephen Benjamin (b. 1966)
Summer Breeze, 2016/17
Three-channel video installation, 40 video monitors, DVDs, cables and cords

Summer Breeze shows performances of the song ”Strange Fruit” by two leading African American vocalists: Billie Holiday and Jill Scott.

Strange Fruit is a poem written by Abel Meeropol, under the pseudonym Lewis Allan, a New York City poet, educator and social activist of Jewish descent, as a response to his viewing a photograph of the lynching of J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham S. Smith, taken by Lawrence Beitler on Augus 7, 1930, which became the most iconic photograph of lynching in America.

In 1850, Swiss-American biologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) commissioned a series of photographs for his study of ”races”. Agassiz intended to use these portraits as visual evidence to support his racist theories of the inferiority of Africans and to prepare a taxonomy of the enslaved population. He commissioned photographer Joseph T. Zealy (1812-1893) of Columbia, South Carolina, to produce a series of daguerreotypes of slaves.

Weems discovered Agassiz’s images in museum and university archives and appropriated them for her own use in 1992. In this series, Weems exposes how photography has played a key role throughout history in shaping and supporting racism, stereotyping and social injustice.

Radiance, by Teri Yarbrow and Max Almy with  Josephine Leong
Immersive virtual reality mandalas

We thought it best to leave the third site, Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters, for another day; three museums in a row seemed like an overkill and, besides, tickets not only give access to all three sites, but they also remain valid for a week.

Jepson Center, Savannah GA

April 3rd, 2018