1988 Bachelor of Architecture
Michael Baushke

In Appalachia I find these desires. There is a barn, which stands alone in a hollow, raised off the ground by stone pilings, and nature has begun to intrude. The barn I see is well-made by time. The sheet metal roof no longer reflects the sky but a history of rain and sun—the red rust is an Appalachian color. The wooden side boards have long ago turned grey but for the wasp scrapings which restore the yellow materiality in infinite vertical stripes. The original seams where construction once stopped and then recommenced have split apart leaving a place for a door, an opening, sky, ornament. And the metal fixtures now define their significance by markings of the same Appalachian red on greying wood.

From this my proposal follows.

• I am looking for a continuation of the provocative nature of rural constructions amidst an inspiring landscape—to follow to the mountains north.

• I am intrigued by the building of the Shakers—a desire for perfection in the object itself.

• And I desire the discoveries of compatible qualities in the greater complexity that a broader time and history have given the hill towns of southern France and central Italy—maintenance and the constant fine tuning of an environment.

Impact of the Award

May 24, 1996

When I was a first-year student in architecture school, my professor took a group of us into the college library. He pulled a large book from a shelf and proceeded to show us the contents, page by page, without saying a word. The book was full of beautiful large drawings of buildings seemingly from another age. I remember seeing none of the structures that were all over the architectural periodicals of that time. The drawings before me were of strong, majestic buildings which spoke of a time when architecture existed in the realm of the true craftsmen, buildings constructed with the teachings of material, light, and a gentle pencil. We were to learn that this book was in fact the result of a competition held yearly by the SOM Foundation in Chicago. The drawings were the work of graduating seniors and had been recognized as exemplary among their peers. I remember how frustratingly unattainable this all seemed as a young student. To be able to create such a representative piece of architecture that held with itself the unmistakable signs of a caring and thoughtful mind. Unmistakable to the creator as well as his judges.

Four years later I was given the opportunity to submit my work to the Foundation as a graduating fifth-year student. The traveling fellowship, however, had existed for me long before the reality of the freedom to see and study the vast possibilities in the world and its architecture. At a very early point in my education, I was shown a piece to a great mystery that would slowly unveil itself over the course of many years, the mystery that was, and still is for me, the unspeakable allure in a beautiful work of architecture.