Alabama Modern

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Not far from the Bryant House stands the Harris House. Its winged roof is responsible for its nickname, "The Butterfly House," and it truly looks as though the building is about to lift off like the yellow lepidopteran fluttering nearby. And, also like a butterfly, it is light and airy. The sharply angled woodwork in the towering screened-in porch could be mistaken for the patterns on a diaphanous wing. The high quality of the workmanship would also please the exacting Norm Abram of This Old House.

It is not only for the poor that the studio builds. In downtown Greensboro it constructed the Children's Center. Serving as a shelter for abused youngsters, it is a colorful, even humorous place with tilted windows, a welcoming canopy, children's handprints in the concrete, and a tractor tire swing. And on a nearby farm in Sawyerville, it built Yancey Chapel. The church rests on a ridge in the woods and is made from discarded tires and old timber as well as slate dredged from a creek. All the materials are humble, yet Yancey is anything but pedestrian. With a font whose water trickles through the sanctuary, clerestory openings to the sky and an upward-sweeping roof cupped like hands set in prayer, the chapel is a sublime embodiment of worship.

Rural Studio structures have transformed Hale County. Yet when Mockbee gazes across its undulating fields, he sees more work that needs to be done. "How deep can I take this? How far can we go?" he muses about his desire not only to try new experiments--like building with wax-impregnated cardboard--but also to further spread his ideas so that others might emulate them. "Most people say we are already on the edge," he says. "But I want to jump into the dark to see what happens and where we land. It won't be fatal. We are onto something good."