A South Forty

Contemporary Architecture and Design in the American South

An ongoing project of The Fay Jones School of Architecture & Design, University of Arkansas, in association with Modus Studio and The Oxford American Journal

Modern architectural history in the regional context of the American South is conventionally framed by singular figures, from Paul Rudolph and the Sarasota School of Florida to Fay Jones and Bruce Goff in the Ozarks and Oklahoma, or stereotypical typologies and appearances. In counterpoint, A SOUTH FORTY aims to provide an overview of the current vitality of contemporary architecture and design in the American South, through both illustrated profiles of buildings and practices, and statements of principles and observations by those in practice in the region.

The contemporary “story” centers on the development of architecture and design in the American South over the last generation (from 1990 forward) as the region undergoes rapid economic and population growth, withstands and recovers from multiple natural disasters, and discovers a more complex and diverse identity amidst the historical societal traditions and conventions. Such a mapping of the American South in these terms opens new and essential territories for work in architecture – more positive, empowering, engaged, sensitive and aware work altogether.

The mapping of A SOUTH FORTY geographically is organized along the armature of US Highway 40, running west from the North Carolina Atlantic seacoast through the southeastern states to an inflection point in Oklahoma. Approximately forty participating practices in the exhibition are drawn from the larger southeastern region along this latitude.

The “story” of A SOUTH FORTY is also one of place-based design, attentive to the necessities of climate, materials, labor, and purpose, but also attentive to overlooked or undervalued typologies, constituencies, and locales. While there is the surge of new urban centers and suburban peripheries as conditions to address in the region, there also is a new appreciation for the smaller communities and rural or even wilderness landscapes as productive sites for distinctive work. As well, while design excellence has been achieved by many practices at the residential scale, the greater emphasis in the exhibition is to be seen at the public scale, in the civic realm, through the accomplishment of buildings and projects of strength, durability and value for the communities in which they are situated.

The exhibition implicitly proposes that the path towards that better “place” of the region leads through both recognition of a common inheritance embedded in the landscape of the American South, and a reconciliation with that physical, cultural and phenomenal landscape. There is much work accomplished, but much still to be done, and as a project, A SOUTH FORTY is just beginning, and still becoming. Read the press release here.