A memorial situated in the Wye River

Wye Landing Memory Houses by Robert Hutchison Robert Hutchison’s Memory Houses is a speculative project that investigates mortality and memory through the lens of architecture. Situated along the banks of the Wye River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, architectural typologies such as dwelling, chapel, lighthouse, and memorial weave together spatial narrative about loss and recollection. Distant as well as more recent architectural memories make cameo appearances in the Memory Houses: the stave churches of Norway and the Great Mosque of Córdoba that Hutchison experienced as a child; the lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay; the timber grain elevators of the Palouse; the Colosseum and the Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome. The project was significantly impacted by Hutchison’s experiences while a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome from January through July 2017.

One of the nine projects that make up the Memory Houses.

The Light House is a memorial. Its asymmetrical shape and perforated cladding allude to a body draped in fabric. The interior is a single space, with continuous circulation from bottom to top to bottom—one experience, looped. The building is akin to an inverted Pozzo di San Patrizio (Saint Patrick’s Well), organized by the plan geometry of Borromini’s San Carlo and supported by the structure of a Chesapeake Bay screwpile lighthouse.

The siding consists of louvered zinc panels whose orientation changes gradually from vertical to horizontal through the height of the structure. The zinc serves as a sacrificial anode to prevent the steel structure from rusting. In the course of a few years, the panels have corroded so much that they require replacement. The resulting quality of light inside the tower changes over time as well.

Design: Robert Hutchison, 2016 - 2018
Drawings: Sharon Fung, Marika Meinen, Hillary Pritchett
Models: Xiaoxi Jiao, Jackie Hensy, Siyu Qu, Kejia Zhang, Wenjing Zhang
Visualizations: Tristan Walker
Model: Blackened Steel Base (fabricated by Dovetail Contractors), Cast Concrete, Painted Wood
Location: Wye River, Wye Mills MD
Photographs: Mark Woods

Sources:
Chesapeake Bay Screwpile Lighthouse + Metal Grain Silo + Trajan’s Column, with Plan geometry of Borromini’s San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane and double helix circulation of St Patrick’s Well in Orvieto.