Commonplaces: Thinking About an American Architecture

Brian Healy is an architect and educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. He established his architectural practice there in 1986 and he has taught graduate design studios at the Yale School of Architecture, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and numerous other major universities in the US. In the Spring of 2007, Brian was selected as the Visiting Artist in Residence at Amherst College in Central Massachusetts. As part of this residency, he was asked to prepare an exhibition and lecture on his work to place it within the context of contemporary architecture in America.This book documents that effort in a collection of essays, observations, drawings, paintings and photographs related to his twenty years of architectural practice in a dozen states, ranging from the Appalachian Hills to the vineyards of Northern California, taking in the Catskills, Chicago, Boston and New Jersey along the way. Prior to establishing his practice, Healy worked in the offices of Cesar Pelli and Richard Meier. This certainly stood him in good stead as his work has received awards and recognition for design excellence from institutions in the US and internationally.