EXCEPTIONAL BARN 1
There is a unique barn shape that I have only seen in Central Upstate New York. The examples that I know of are around Seneca Falls. They look very organic and wedded to the landscape. In comparison, traditional ubiquitous gable box barns look completely out of place by comparison.
My first introduction to this barn shape was the examples that you see from the Thruway. I have been admiring this example for decades. Every time that I drive West I always fondly give it a glance. Years ago I took this transparency.
Then, a few weeks ago, I happened upon this example which is just a few feet off of Route 20. After doing the typical slamming on the brakes and then turning the car around, I was able to take this photo. What captures my attention every time are the segmented sloping sides. One of the sides is parallel to the ground, while the other slopes gently toward the grade.
As I started to walk toward the barn while still staying on the shoulder of the road, I noticed that at the other end, people were working. In this day and age, you never know when someone might be observing you taking a picture of their building. And you also don’t know how they will react. So you need to proceed with caution if it looks like people are near the building that you want to take a photo of.
Unfortunately it has been covered with aluminum panels. Nevertheless, this panelization still reveals the essential form of the building.
Because of this observed human activity, I was only able to take a photo from one end. From this photo, I was able to construct how this form actually works, and how it relates to the landscape. I realized that to make the form work, the top of the form has to be flat. This seems incongruous given the snow loads per our Upstate location. Nevertheless, it was only after drawing this form transparently was I able to understand how this works.
And note also how the form relates to the sloping topography. In the two instances of this form, the sloping segment always meets the landscape, while the horizontal segment always is not in contact with the ground.
So there are two morals to this story. The first lesson is that it took me over 20 years from first appreciation to holistic understanding of the form. If I would have had transparent drawing available as a tool 20 years ago, who knows what the effect might have been on my work.
The second lesson is that if you observe the presence of humans, it is a good idea to take your photos so that they do not see you. In this instance, that worked. I will have more tips and pitfalls later of the ups and downs of taking pictures of buildings. One of my photo events that I will describe later involved the input of the County Sheriff.
While not at all the same, the framing of the barn “somewhat” reminds me of the pine framing in the Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, Norway. One section of the memorial was designed by Peter Zumthor: . If the appeal is to transparency, then Steilneset is certainly transparent. (The somewhat grim memorial commemorates the burning at the stake of male and female witches in the seventeenth century. The sculpture by Louise Bourgeois adds to the eeriness of the island memorial.) Still, I can’t quite understand the framing in Exceptional Barn I. There is a kind of strangeness to the “hip roof” at the end. That’s for lateral bracing… or?