Memory Houses: Nine Allegorical Works of Architecture

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.

The Memory Houses are:

House for a Train Engineer (Signal Box)
House for Locomotives (Round House)
House for Winemaking (Winery)
House for Remains (Chapel & Columbarium)
House for Bells (Carillon Tower)
House for a Widow (Boat House)
House for Memories (Lighthouse)
Telescope House & Milk House

Solo Exhibition, Casa Luis Barragan, Mexico City, August & September 2019
Book Publication, July 2019, published through Arquine, partial funding provided through a 2019 Graham Foundation Individual Grant
Solo Exhibition, Gallery4Culture, Seattle, May 2018

Sources: Douglas Darden + Raimund Abraham + Mary-Ann Ray + John Hejduk.