A Critical Point on Southern Regionalism
I want to talk about this guy:
Now this is "Grove Plantation" on Edisto Island. It is, more importantly, Google Image Search's first hit for "Plantation House". The plantation house can be found all over the south, with a notably large concentration particularly around South Carolina's coastal regions. Homes in this regional group are characterized by their use of columns, a symmetrical facade, raised porches, the color white, and their position "residing over" a piece of property. Clemson's own campus has at least two–Fort Hill and Cooper Library. Fort Hill is a literal plantation house–it was the house built for the landowner to live in back when Clemson was a plantation–therefore a "regional" piece. Cooper library, is, on the other hand, a "critically regionalist" piece in that it refers to the existing regional identity as a way to mark itself as the most important building on campus, as well assert an idea of Clemson as both grounded in South Carolina's past and looking forward to a less greek revival future.
For y'all that haven't left Lee Hall the whole time you were here:
Now this is "Grove Plantation" on Edisto Island. It is, more importantly, Google Image Search's first hit for "Plantation House". The plantation house can be found all over the south, with a notably large concentration particularly around South Carolina's coastal regions. Homes in this regional group are characterized by their use of columns, a symmetrical facade, raised porches, the color white, and their position "residing over" a piece of property. Clemson's own campus has at least two–Fort Hill and Cooper Library. Fort Hill is a literal plantation house–it was the house built for the landowner to live in back when Clemson was a plantation–therefore a "regional" piece. Cooper library, is, on the other hand, a "critically regionalist" piece in that it refers to the existing regional identity as a way to mark itself as the most important building on campus, as well assert an idea of Clemson as both grounded in South Carolina's past and looking forward to a less greek revival future.
For y'all that haven't left Lee Hall the whole time you were here:
Fort Hill
Cooper Library
When I realized Cooper Library was making this (admittedly slick) move, my opinion of the building seriously improved–but this experience for me raises a two really important criticisms of critical regionalism for me.
1–Is it really working if you have to look for it to notice it?
I went to Clemson for years before I noticed what Cooper was doing, and even then I only put it together because I had a professor ask me exactly how Cooper was functioning as both modern and historic. Now, I notice stuff like this a lot faster, but because it took me so long, I have serious doubts that users who don't study architecture will ever consciously appreciate it.
Then again, does that really matter?
2–Should we propagate evil memories?
The plantation house has an ugly history. It's in the name. The word "plantation" itself refers to a history of slavery and oppression. Many of the true regional plantation houses were not only built off the backs of slaves, but were instruments of managing the South's forced labor in the day. Now to a lot of Southerners, the form has far more benign characteristics. It has become more to do with a specific flavor of the "American Dream" than with oppressing slaves, but that association still exists for many people. By constructing a library with clear associations to the plantation house type, did Clemson accidentally announce to African-Americans that they're not wanted here?
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