“Preserving Cultural Identity In The Era Of Gentrification” with Tom Howorth, FAIA
Friday, June 1st, at 7 p.m. in the Essex Town Hall
In 1986, Tom Howorth moved from New Orleans to Jackson, Mississippi to form the partnership of Mockbee•Coker•Howorth Architects, a firm that won immediate critical recognition, such as a prestigious P/A First Award for architectural design from Progressive Architecture, and inclusion in the Domino’s Top 30 list of the world’s best architects. The firm also collaborated with other firms to win and successfully execute a number of multi-million dollar commissions.
In 1990, Mr. Howorth left that partnership to form Howorth & Associates Architects, providing architectural and interior design services for a wide variety of clients—governmental, corporate, not-for-profit, and private individuals—who consider their buildings investments rather than expenses.
Tom graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall and has degrees from Leeds Metropolitan University, Vanderbilt University, Mississippi State University and Virginia Tech. He is a past president of AIA/Mississippi, of the Mississippi Heritage Trust and of Parents For Public Schools national organization. He was recognized in 1993 with the AIA’s Young Architect’s Citation and elected to the College Of Fellows in 1999. He served on the AIA’s Committee On Design Advisory Group from 2007-2011, and as its Chair in 2011.
Come hear a fascinating lecture on the conflict between historic preservation, economic development, and environmental (and social) sustainability in emerging economies. Tom has recently visited Cuba and China, among other places, to research current developments on this subject.
This is the last talk in the 2011-12 series; see the list of speakers here. We’ve got a great lineup of speakers for next year. Stay tuned for more information on the schedule.
Havana at sunset. Photo by Tom Howorth, FAIA.
True Crime At The Essex Library
April 11, 2012
We’re finishing off our 2012 True Crime series at the Library on Thursday, April 12th at 7 p.m. in the Essex Town Hall. The FBI will appear in the form of Special Agent Art Meister, whose long and storied career with the FBI was spent breaking up crime rings, tracking down serial killers, and helping make the cases that make the headlines. Come hear the inside stories of some of his most challenging cases.
True Crime Series Continues with Dr. Allison Paganelli: The Making Of A Serial Killer
March 28, 2012
Dexter, Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates; they entertain and terrify us in equal degrees. But how much do these fictional human monsters have in common with real serial killers? Is there a common psychological “fingerprint”? And serial killers made or born?
Dr. Allison Paganelli, a specialist in Abnormal Psychology, will talk about the traits that are characteristic to that most feared class of criminal; what science knows, and doesn’t know, about serial killers. Please note, this program is not suitable for children. Thursday, March 29th, 7 p.m. at the Essex Town Hall. Please call 860 767-1560 to register.
The Centerbrook Architects Lecture Series Continues With Landscape Designer Louis Raymond
March 6, 2012
Louis Raymond at home in the Red Border
“Plays well with Plants: A Gardener’s Garden of a Lifetime, Fifteen Years & Counting”
Friday, March 23rd, at 7 p.m. in the Essex Town Hall
Louis Raymond is a garden and landscape designer with clients nationwide; his own riotous garden in Hopkinton, Rhode Island will be the subject of an upcoming book. His exuberant designs have been widely published, including in House & Garden Magazine (on the cover), Metropolitan Home, and Design New England. In “Plays Well With Plants,” he’ll talk candidly about his garden’s successes and failures, and how his design philosophy has guided its creation. Overall, he is pleased with the fruits of his own labor: “So far, so good: The red borders actually do look red, sometimes triumphantly. The Belgian fence – of beeches, not fruit trees – is filling out its frame. Two of the pergolas are built and largely canopied. The double-ball topiary of hardy orange is the biggest and baddest on the continent. The Southern magnolias, so rare this far north, are almost as high as the roof.”
Raymond has been gardening for over 50 years, ever since, as a pre-schooler, he “borrowed” a number of geraniums from public gardens across the street from the family home. While he has always had a fondness for plants and gardening, Raymond took the scenic route to his current vocation. By the time he was 25, he had already earned baccalaureate degrees in chemistry, piano, and voice – and still found time for a couple of years of medical school along the way – before launching successful careers as an opera singer and a freelance writer. By 30, he had retired from both to take up the trowel fulltime. Click here to register for this program.
Click here to see the schedule of Centerbrook talks for 2012.
Many of the Centerbrook Architects Lecture Series talks for 2010-2011 can be viewed on YouTube. Links to the films are on our Lecture page here.
Wayward Saints: Songs & Stories From Suzzy Roche, February 4th at 4
February 3, 2012
The Essex Library presents author/musician Suzzy Roche, who will appear at Valley Regional High School Auditorium, Saturday, Feb. 4 at 4 p.m. to talk about her new novel, Wayward Saints and sing some songs.
Suzzy was a founding member of the musical group The Roches, who performed for twenty years as a trio throughout Europe and the United States in a wide variety of venues, from their own sold-out show at Carnegie Hall to the concert halls of Europe and the street corners of New York City. They appeared on The Tonight Show, The David Letterman Show, and have sung with Philip Glass, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson, The Indigo Girls, Loudon Wainwright and Linda Ronstadt, just to name a few.
After the Roches put their group on an indefinite hiatus in 1997, Suzzy returned later that year with her solo debut Holy Smokes and its 2000 follow-up, Songs From An Unmarried Housewife and Mother, Greenwich Village. She also appeared in the film Crossing Delancey with Amy Irving and performs with theater ensembles like the Wooster Group.
Books will be available for signing and sale, and the show is free and open to the public. Please call the Essex Library for more information at 860-767-1560.
Valley Regional High School is at 256 Kelsey Hill Road, Deep River, CT 06417.
Centerbrook Architects Lecture Series Continues On Friday, February 3rd with Joeb Moore
February 2, 2012
Joeb Moore, AIA – “House, Form and Culture”
Friday, February 3rd at 7 p.m. in the Essex Meadows auditorium, 30 Bokum Rd, Essex, CT
In the field of architecture, designing houses is a proving ground. It is often the place where the best young architectural talent has the opportunity to push the art of architecture forward. Frank Gehry, and Frank Lloyd Wright, for that matter, started their careers by designing houses that changed the way we think about home. For adventuresome clients, their house is an opportunity to try something new. To be sure, everyone wants their home to be functional and comfortable – but we also aspire to something special.
Connecticut is lucky to have Joeb Moore. He has provided a decade of inspiration in how to design comfortable houses that also inspire us about what is possible. He is a perennial favorite in the Connecticut AIA design awards because even if you don’t want the house for yourself (it was not designed for you anyway) you are inspired by how interesting and beautifully crafted it is. Joeb will discuss how these houses were designed and built and will inspire us to think about our homes in a different way.
Mr. Moore is principal of Joeb Moore + Partners, Architects, an architecture and design firm in Greenwich, Connecticut. Mr. Moore received his B.A. and M. Arch. degrees from Clemson University. He is the recipient of more than twenty-five AIA New England, AIA CT, and AIA NY Design Awards since founding his practice in 1993. Recent awards include a 2010 AIA National Residential Honor Award; 2009 North American WOOD Design Award; 2009 AIA New England First Honor Award; and “2009—Best of the Year” Merit Award, Interior Design.
Before joining the Yale faculty in 2007, Mr. Moore taught at Catholic University and Columbia University. From 1996 to 2006 he was the assistant director of the Barnard/Columbia Undergraduate Architecture Department. His background is in the history and theory of aesthetics and systems of representation in architecture. He has lectured and exhibited widely on his work and research, which currently is focused on the history of the suburban house and the legacy of the “Harvard Five” and the American mid-century “Good Life” residential house and program.
See the entire schedule of upcoming Centerbrook Lectures and videos from past talks here.
Witnesses To History, Veteran’s Day Program
October 31, 2011
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Ben Cooper was a young combat medic with the 45th Infantry Division in WWII when he was sent to Germany to be an official witness at the Dachau Concentration Camp, an experience he never spoke of until 1990. He broke his decades-long silence, he explains, to help today’s youth understand the reality of war, and to bear witness to what he saw of the Holocaust so that it might never be repeated. Henny Simon, a German Jew, experienced the horrors of the Ghetto and the death camps from the opposite side; as an internee and survivor. Today, the two are friends, and speak together on this compelling, ever-relevant topic. The Essex Library is proud to present the fourth in its Witnesses To History series of programs on Veteran’s Day, Friday November 11th at 3 p.m., at Essex Town Hall, with Ben Cooper and Henny Simon.
Please don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to hear history, as told by those who were there to see and live it. This is a program you will never forget. Call the Essex Library to register, or for more information, at 860-767-1560. The Essex Town Hall is located at 29 West Avenue in Essex.
Connecticut Ghostbusters Appear Tonight
October 28, 2011
October 28th at 7 p.m. at the Essex Library
Got a haunted house – or just like to hear about them? Join Connecticut Paranormal Research Society “Ghostbusters” Joe Franke and Orlando Ferrante for a special program that reveals Connecticut’s Most Haunted – homes, cemeteries, and more – via photo, film evidence, and eyewitness accounts. Scary good fun (not for kids under age ten – sorry)! A donation of $5 per person is requested to defray program costs. Click here to register for this program.
DO NOT Miss The Next Mad Science Event!
July 8, 2011
Our next hands on science and engineering experiments for students aged 7-12 will take place on Wednesday, August 11th at 3 p.m.
Yesterday, our Mad Scientists constructed a variety of chutes all over the Program Room to see what effect gravity has on marbles. Anybody played a giant game of Mousetrap lately? Mad fun for all!
Civil War Week At The Library Starts July 12th
July 7, 2011
Thanks to a generous grant from Citizens’ Bank, July 12 through July 16 is Civil War Week at the Essex Library. The week includes programs, talks, exhibits, and concerts for all ages. Artifacts from the Essex Historical Society’s collections are on display in the Adult section of the Library and we have a display of books about the Civil War for patrons to check out.
Tuesday July 12 at 7: “It Was the Hardest Trial of my Life”: The 16th Connecticut Regiment and its Imprisonment at Andersonville and Florence Stockades, an illustrated lecture by Connecticut Historical Society scholar John Potter about a harrowing and little-known aspect of Connecticut soldiers’ experience.
Thursday, July 14 at 7: Letters Home; the Letters of Private Henry Brown, presented by John Proctor. A dramatic and moving illustrated talk about the wartime experiences of one young soldier, as seen through his letters to his father, performed by local Civil War buff (and relative of young Brown) John Henry Proctor.
Friday, July 15 at 12 to 4:30, it’s our Gone With The Wind-a-Thon! Watch this classic film while munching delicious ham biscuits and sipping sweet tea, just like Miss Scarlett. Hoop skirts and/or beaver hats optional. This is an American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Saturday, July 16, brings two family-friendly events; 10 – 11:30am: Civil War Fashion Show with Kandy Carle. Ms. Carle takes her audience on a journey of discovery by using clothes and fashion as a tool. Throughout the presentation she shares insights into clothing, lifestyle, manners and etiquette of men, women and children. Included are interesting anecdotes and ‘myth busters’ for the Civil War time period. The performance is full of audience interaction and is geared toward participants aged 8 and up. Ms. Carle is Artistic Director of the East Haddam Stage Company.
12:30 – 2 “The Greatest Hits of the Civil War: America’s Earliest Professional Songwriters” with Rick Spencer. At the Main Street Park Gazebo in downtown Essex (rain location: The Essex Library Program Room). This entertaining and educational music program presents songs that were among the most popular of the era. The years just prior to the War were times of remarkable cultural development in America and during that period, for the first time in our history, it was possible for musicians to make a living writing songs. Writers like Daniel Decatur Emmett (“Dixie”), Stephen Foster (“Oh Susanna”), George F. Root (“The Battle Cry of Freedom”) and Henry Clay Work (“Kingdom Coming”) composed songs which became the great “pop hits” of the 1860s.
