January 3, 2005 (RALEIGH, NC) – In what architectural professor and scholar Kenneth Frampton considered an epoch-making address to the American Institute of Architects in 1954, the late Harwell Hamilton Harris, FAIA, proclaimed that the “most important resources of a region are its free minds, its imagination, its stake in the future, its energy, and last of all, its climate, its topography and the particular kinds of sticks and stones it has to build with.” He further declared that “for architecture to be really great, it must express variety, freedom, love of the physical world that is the product of the best regionalism – the regionalism of liberation.”

For the September 2004 edition of doco,mo.mo., the biannual journal of Paris-based Docomomo International (DI), a non-profit organization dedicated to the documentation and conservation of modern buildings, sites and neighborhoods, Raleigh-based architect Frank Harmon, FAIA, was asked to examine Harris’ contribution to modern architecture and how it might be preserved. The result is Harmon’s five-page article in DI’s 31^st journal, entitled “Regionalism & Preservation In The Work of Harwell Hamilton Harris.”

Docomomo International is to modern architecture what the National Register of Historic Places is to pre-20^th century architecture. Although accustomed to scanning the globe for content, this particular issue of DI’s journal focuses on postwar modernism in America.

In the article, Harmon points out that California-born Harwell Harris, who moved to Raleigh, NC, in the 1960s, was one of the first 20^th-century architects to analyze the meaning of place in modern architecture and the role of the region as a creative stimulus to progressive design. Harmon notes that Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) once referred to Harris as the second best architect in America, after Frank Lloyd Wright, and that Frank Lloyd Wright held a similar high regard for Harris.

One of the primary purposes for Harmon’s Docomomo contribution was to address how Harris’ buildings and landscapes must be carefully maintained and preserved. He praises certain architects for their sensitive restoration of some of Harris’ buildings, and notes that the immaterial and transparent nature of the architect’s projects require particular sensitivity to preserve.

Frank Harmon is principal of the award-winning firm Frank Harmon Architect PA and was a close, personal friend of Harwell Harris from 1981 until Harris’ death in 1990. During that time, Harmon traveled with Harris to visit his buildings in California, Texas, and North Carolina. Harmon also considered Harris a mentor and, like other contemporary architects including Will Bruder and Frank Gehry, he credits Harris as a strong and early influence on his own career.

For more information on DI’s mission and its international journal, visit the website – docomomo@citechaillot.org.

For more information on Frank Harmon, go to www.frankharmon.com.