REMEMBERING FAY JONES
by Michael Cockram
http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/today.html
http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2004/0915/news_1-1.html
The architecture community mourns the loss of E. Fay
Jones, who died on August 30, 2004 at the age of 83.
While many notable architects strain for the limelight,
Fay Jones was content to work quietly and tirelessly in
the tranquility of his small office in Fayetteville,
Arkansas.
Staying at home among the Ozark's oak forests, he
formed and refined an inventive vein of distinctively
American architecture. Always deferential toward his
mentor, Frank Lloyd Wright, Fay Jones took aspects of
Wright's work and reshaped it and, as Wright himself
acknowledged, made it his own.
When I reported for work in his office as a young
intern in the winter of 1990, Fay was away. He was in
Washington DC receiving the AIA Gold Medal from the
Prince of Wales and the President of the United States.
In his office, there was no secretary, no computer, no
copying machine, and all of the work was done in pencil
on paper.
Each of the five employees sat next to a flat file full
of projects. My recollection of the experience is an
image of being immersed in a sea of drawings ~ 50 years
of thoughtful, directed work and learning the order of
things and the refinement of a distinct way of thinking
about building.
... full story continues online (6 images):
http://www.ArchWeek.com/2004/0915/news_1-1.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While at PSU, I attended one of his lectures to see and hear about his exceptionally spiritual work. Earlier, while a professor at The University of Kansas, I visited his work for the architecture school studios at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR. .H.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Fay_Jones.html
Fay Jones
(b. 1921, d. August 31, 2004)
E. Fay Jones was born in 1921. He studied at the University of Arkanasas in Fayetteville and at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He also apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright before establishing a private practice in Arkansas.
An unassuming architect, E. Fay Jones has worked quietly in the isolation of the Ozark Mountains for most of his career. Ignoring architectural trends, Jones has continued to refine the vocabulary of regional forms and materials that he learned as a student with the Taliesin Fellowship. Using Wrightean principles, tailored to his own aesthetics, Jones has created buildings that Wright might have proudly claimed.
Jones shows a marked ability to translate fanciful sketches into built form. While many designers envision a structural framework clad with an outer skin of enclosing materials, Jones has actually created the vision. His two most renowned buildings - Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and the Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel in Bella Vista, Arkansas exhibit a transcendental flair for the sculptural and the simple. Both are graceful, wooden, outdoor structures.
Details
Recipient of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, 1990.
Full name: Euine Fay Jones
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
