Centerbrook Architects Lecture Series Finishes Season With Tom Howorth, FAIA

“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.

Architect Carol Bentel, FAIA, “The 3 D’s: Design – Dream – Dine”

Whether it’s for designing award-winning restaurants for celebrity chefs Tom Colicchio (Craft restaurants in New York, Las Vegas and L.A.) or Danny Meyer (Eleven Madison Park , The Modern), or the renovation of Le Bernardin, or designing hotels in Boston and Amsterdam, and high-roller suites in more than one Las Vegas hotel, Bentel & Bentel has cemented their place in the hospitality field of architecture. Their designs have garnered awards from not only the American Institute of Architects but also the James Beard Foundation and all the Bentel & Bentel partners have been inducted into the Hospitality Design Hall Of Fame. Find out how restaurants are designed for customers to see and be seen while conducting successful business meetings and social gatherings.

 Le Bernardin Restaurant Photo by Archphoto Inc.

Carol Bentel was born in St. Louis in 1957.  She received her undergraduate degree in architecture at Washington University and her graduate degree in architecture at North Carolina State University.  Prior to receiving her post graduate education in the history and theory of modern architecture at the Modern architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Venice (Italy).  She is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.  She has taught at Harvard, MIT, Georgia Tech, and the Architectural Association in London.  She has delivered lectures at Harvard, MIT, Yale, and the Centro Palladio in Vicenza (Italy).

Bentel & Bentel has received both international and national recognition including the recent induction of all the partners in the Hospitality Design Hall Of Fame in 2007. Their projects have garnered numerous awards for design excellence including the American Institute of Architects Awardfor Interior Design and the James Beard Award for Best Restaurant Design. Their restaurant projects include designing The Modern, located in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Craftsteak and Craft, as well as Eleven Madison Park–all in New York City.

Click here to see the schedule of Centerbrook Architects Lectures for 2012.

Many of the Centerbrook Architects Lecture Series talks for 2010-2011 can be viewed on YouTube or you can scroll through the listing on this page for their links.

Creating Aphrodite

Patrick McCauley, Centerbrook Architects’ Master Model Maker/ Product Designer will give an illustrated talk on Thursday, April 19th at 7 p.m. at the Essex Library.

We’ll take you into the shop of this amazing artist as he details his construction of the meticulous model ship – the Aphrodite, a six-foot, two-inch-long replica of the original boat built by financier John Hay “Jock” Whitney, which is on display at the Ocean House hotel in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.

True Crime At The Essex Library

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

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

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.

Diamonds and Purls–New Knitting Group Draws A Crowd

Admit it – you’re a knitter, or you want to be.  But what fun is it to knit all alone? And who’ll show you new patterns, knitting books or share ideas?  Join our new knitting group, Diamonds and Purls, meeting every Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m. If you’ve never knitted, Librarian Anna Cierocki will show you how; just bring a set of size 10 needles and we’ll even supply the yarn. If you’re an experienced knitter, bring whatever you’re working on. It’s a sociable and productive way to spend an afternoon.

We’ve got some wonderful knitting books available including:

The Principles Of Knitting by June Hiatt
A revised and updated edition of a popular classic primer shares comprehensive guidelines for beginning and experienced knitters that demonstrate how to approach a full range of techniques.

Knits Men Want by Bruce Weinstein
For as long as women have been knitting, they’ve been knitting garments for men-only to have men hide their lovingly created pieces in drawers and closets. There are timeless master patterns, from socks, hats, and scarves to an array of sweaters, all in a range of sizes and most written for multiple gauges.

Knitting In The Details by Louisa Harding
The 24 projects in Knitting in the Details showcase small, quick-to-knit patterns in Louisa’s romantic, feminine, and cherished signature style, from a beret with ribbon embroidery or a beaded scarf to a simple knitted vest with eyelets or a tank top with appliqué hearts.

400 Knitting Stitches
Filled with detailed, step-by-step instructions, charts, and photographs, this book covers nearly any fiber style you’re looking to create.

Gifted: lovely little things to knit & crochet by Mags Kandis
Designer Mags Kandis inspires with this delightful collection of beautiful and colorful little projects for you to knit, crochet, and felt. From wearable accessories such as hats, mittens, scarves, socks, and wraps to home decor including a tea cozy, pin cushion, needle case, and laptop cover, these 30+ pieces are sweet, lively and add a little joy to every household.

More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson
A collection of thirty knitted patterns that can be completed in a minimum of time features instructions for creating such classic gifts as mittens and hats, as well as newer ideas including a seed-stitch bracelet and pyramid-shaped sachets.

Wayward Saints: Songs & Stories From Suzzy Roche, February 4th at 4

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

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

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.