Kountouriotika Refugee Settlement: 1923 Red Cross Films

How is it possible that the first organized humanitarian action by the Greek immigrants in the U.S. could disappear from the annals of history? Although I have not quite verified this by any primary sources, Greek-Americans raised funds in 1923 to build the earliest refugee settlement in Athens. The settlement was known as Emirikon or, more commonly, as Kountouriotika, after Greek Admira (and later President) Paul Kountouriotis, who managed the distribution of the Greek diaspora relief funds. Kountouriotika is a unique settlement. It preceded the refugee housing built by the Refugee Settlement Commission (1923-1930) and the housing blocks built by the Greek government in the 1930s. The most famous of these, the Alexandras Avenue Apartments designed by the Le Corbusier trained Kimon Lascaris (1933-1935), has so dominated the architectural discourse over public housing, that it has eclipsed any interest on its American project across the street. 

The corner of Alexandras and Vasilisis Sofias Avenue has a layered history. It houses Greece's oldest continuously used stadium (for ther Panathenaic Soccer Team) and was inaugurated the same year as the refugee crisis. The Greek American diaspora invested in this corner a second time, paying for the field's light electrification in 1938. The corner is also the site of the infamous Averof Prisons, where political prisoners were held during the Fascist Regime of Metaxas (1937-40) and the colonel junta (1967-74). Like the Kountouriotika settlement, Averof Prisons were torn down in the 1970s.

Although I'm certain there is some Greek scholarship on Kountoriotika, I am surprised that it has not received greater attention. I am grateful to conversations with Jack Davies, who has explored this settlement even further in his archival work and with Alexander Kitroeff, the expert on the Panathenaikos Stadium. The limelight of Kountouriotika is 1923, when it was presented as a model project for humanitarian aid. It was quickly superseded with other projects, such as the refugee settlement at Pangrati, named Vyronas in 1924 (at the centennial of Lord Byron's death). 

My first photographic discovery of Kountouriotika was in the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection at the Library of Congress. During his journey through Greece in 1923, Carpenter took photographed the refugee crisis. In the photo below, he notes: "A refugee city that was built by Greek Americans--A model of cleanliness and order."

This weekend, I became aware of another visual source for the Kountouriotika refugee settlement, thanks to the Greek Red Cross and Stephanie Larson. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has digitized its audiovisual collection and made it available to the public online. The collection includes seven reels documenting the 1923 refugee crisis in Greece. 

The reels offer invaluable evidence for the archaeology of humanitarian relief and, specifically, on the construction of Kountouriotika. The reels were recorded in 1923 by Rodolphe de Reding Biberegg, the ICRC delegate in Greece. De Reding took over the delegation in 1922 after the abdication of King George (Queen Sophia had been the president of the Greek Red Cross and, naturally, resigned). De Reding's activities in Greece are best documented in a recent article by David Rodogno, “The American Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Humanitarian Politics and Policies in Asia Minor and Greece (1922-1923),” First World War Studies 5:1 (2014), pp. 83-99. De Reding's first accomplishments was to convert the abandoned Stringos light bulb factory into a shelter for 2,500 refugees and to organize numerous soup kitchens. An even greater accomplishment was to manage the construction of Kountouriotika and herald it as a model refugee settlement. It is for this precise paradigmatic reason that the reels were filmed. Rodogno argues that "the construction of this showcase village was supposed to demonstrate to both Greek authorities and international donors that it was possible to find a permanent solution to the settlement of the refugees." (94)

The ICRC film is perhaps the most thorough documentation of this experiment. The settlement included a textile factory, a school, kitchens, a hospital, and a church. The film also shows working textile workers. It also shows the construction of yet another refugee settlement, which I have not yet identified. It is constructed by wood rather than brick. This is the German (Γερμανικά) type of housing, which took its name from the wood that the German government gave to Greece as part of its World War I reparations. Most architectural historians concur that no wooden structure of this type survives today, but I am hopeful that we might have simply not looked hard enough.

I have only began to scratch the surface on the archaeological value of these ICRC films entitled "The Greek-Turkish War: Greece 1923." But first, I provide here a general overview and links of the seven digitized films. Each film has a reference number and a link to its source. The most relevant reels for Kountouriotika are numbers 7, 8, 9, and the end of 10. The description is quoted directly from the ICRC Audiovisual Archive.

V-F-CR-H-00001-5
Individual portraits of all members of the International Commission for the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Civilian and Military Prisoners in front of the ICRC delegation in Athens. Established by the agreement of January 30, 1923 between Greece and Turkey on the exchange of prisoner of war, the commission works from February 27, 1923 (first report) to September 15, 1923 (departure of the ICRC delegate in Smyrna, dr Schatmann). Members: President Colonel Eduard Wildbolz (Swiss RC); Dr. Page (Swiss CR); Dr. Lindsjöe (Swedish CR); Commander J. Cottakis (Greek Gov.); Ali Muzaffer Bey (Turkish Govt) and Paul Schazmann (Intermediate at Smyrna from February to September 1923, made two fact-finding missions to Turkish prisoners of war in Greece in January 1922 and January 1923).

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The first plans show the embarkation of Turkish refugees on a liner. A second sequence shows a refugee camp at the seaside in which many Turks wait to be embarked. The latest plans show the International Commission for the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Civilian and Military Prisoners in its entirety on the wharf and in front of the ICRC delegation in Athens (same plan as in V F CR-H-00001-5). Members: President Colonel Eduard Wildbolz (Swiss RC); Dr. Page (Swiss CR); Dr. Lindsjöe (Swedish CR); Commander J. Cottakis (Greek Gov.); Ali Muzaffer Bey (Turkish Government) and Paul Schazmann (Intermediary at Smyrna, Feb. 1923, who made two fact-finding missions to Turkish prisoners of war in Greece in January 1922 and January 1923). 

V-F-CR-H-00001-7
The film presents the different stages of the construction of the village "Embirikon" built thanks to the support of the mission of Reding and the subsidies sent by the Greeks of America to permanently lodge part of the refugees in brick houses. The construction of this village by the Greek refugees is the subject of this film .. It shows the work of the various workers (masons, carpenters, carpenters, etc. ..)

V-F-CR-H-00001-8
The film shows several weaving and sewing workshops where girls work. The images also contain two scenes of children's meals. The emblem of the International Union of Help to Children appears in most plans. A map shows children entering one of the brick houses that are being built in V F CR-H-00001-7. 

V-F-CR-H-00001-9
The first plans show the installation of families in the village "Embirikon". We see Rodolphe de Reding. The following plans show the construction of a camp of ten white tents. The latest plans show the construction of a wooden barracks camp, a gift from the Imperial war fund.

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The film shows King George II and Queen Mary of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in front of the ICRC and International Children's Relief Union delegations in Athens. Following a ceremony of awards ceremony in which the king participates in an amphitheater; hard to know what exactly it is. Finally, the royal couple visit the village "Embirikon"

V-F-CR-H-00001-11
The film shows food coming and going in the Save the Children Fund depot and a visit by two Save the Children Fund delegates from a children's school (or orphanage). The Save the Children Fund sign appears three times in these images.

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Five House Thoughts

In the spirit of Bill Caraher's Friday Quick Hits, I will list five inspiring ideas that emerged last week from lectures and readings

1. Housing Refugees in Lancaster

The Ware Institute for Civic Engagement at Franklin & Marshall has become one of my favorite connectors. One of the Ware Institute's initiatives is to engage F&M students with refugees living in our community, many placed in housing next to our college. This week's Common Hour was organized by the volunteers who assist these refugees and it was very inspiring. I have decided to add a component of architectural analysis on the construction of transient dwelling by these community and engage students in my architectural history classes on first-hand investigations, interviews, analysis, etc. I have been brainstorming with Ware Institute dir. Susan Dicklitch on the right recipe for such a project or internship. Common Hour convinced me of the amazing potential of a refugee architectural angle. In my Spring seminar, Lancaster: Architecture of Faith, I hope to explore new cultural identities in Lancaster through places of worship. In other words, I hope to focus part of the seminar on the role of faith in contemporary transient communities like our Iraqi and Burmese refugees right on College Avenue. I've started to read up on the architecture of camps, see Charlie Hailey, Camps: A Guide to 21st-Century's Space (2009) and I've been following the horrendous refugee housing issues in Greece for a few years.

2. Housing College Women

The third installment of the lectures series that I organized at F&M was devoted to the architecture of women's colleges in Victorian England and the United States: Margaret Vickery "Buildings for Bluestockings: Architectural Design Strategies for Women's Colleges in the 19th Century." Women's colleges stressed a domestic architectural identity and tried hard not to resemble the monastic paradigms of male colleges. While men's colleges were designed around cloisters with free access to individual bachelors, women's colleges were heavily monitored by corridors. Vickery's lecture gave us an opportunity to think about contemporary notions of domesticity in our College House system. Those interested in these issues should read Vickery's The Architecture and Social Space of Women's Colleges in Late Victorian England (1999) and Smith College: The Campus Guide (2007).

3. Housing the Accumulation of Objects

Thanks to the New York Times Home and Garden section, I have discovered a new favorite photographer. Corine May Botz has been photographing the collection of stuff in people's homes. For her M.A. thesis, she photographed the houses of agoraphobics. Monacelli Press has just published another project devoted to Haunted Houses (2010). Botz's most current work explores The Secret Life of Objects and can be previewed in her blog. For the introduction to Botz's work, see Penelope Green, "Documenting Accumulation and Its Discontents," NYT (Nov. 3, 2010). I was thrilled to see reference to architectural historian Anthony Vidler, whose work on the Uncanny has heavily inspired my last paper "Fleshing Out the Byzantine House." My friend Michael Clapper, who works on houses and the ordinary art that people habitually collected (including Kincaid) will surely love Botz, too. Maybe we can invite her to speak at F&M.

4. Housing in Global Highrises

Domestic vistas--psychotic or voyeuristic--also come through global perspectives. Take a peak at the Highrise Project. Click here and see Katerina Cizek's "Out My Window," 360 degrees of vertical domesticities across the world.

5. Writers' Windows

Matteo Pericoli is well known for his long architectural drawings of Manhattan. Pericoli began a new series featuring views out of the windows of well known contemporary writers throughout the. Four installments have been published in the New York Times, views out of the apartments of Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul, Daniel Kehlman in Berlin, Andrea Levy in London, and Ryu Murakami in Tokyo.

Fleshing Out the Byzantine House

Yesterday morning, I gave a paper at the 36th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference. My paper included archaeological data from Athens, Corinth, Chersonesos, Sicily and Egypt and focused on fetuses buried under house floors (not uncommon). The introduction and the conclusion of the paper were formally written but the case studies were extemporaneously presented from the slides. The paper was just the beginning of a longer article that I hope to write soon, but I offer the draft here. One can cite the paper as, Kostis Kourelis, "Fleshing Out the Byzantine House," Byzantine Studies Conference Abstracts 36 (2010) 117-118, where the following text is published. I should also note that this paper originated from this blog, see Byzantine Children Burials (Aug. 28, 2008). I want to thank all of you who responded in person or by email to that posting. It illustrates for me the value of blogging and the free exchange of ideas.

FLESHING OUT THE BYZANTINE HOUSE
ABSTRACT

The mutable nature of domestic architecture has guaranteed the disappearance of most houses from the extant material record visible to the architectural historian. Thanks to commemorative and ritual functions, on the other hand, churches survive in greater numbers and are deployed to tell the whole story of Byzantine architecture. Recent efforts to fill this domestic gap have produced a corpus of houses excavated with greater sensitivity towards anthropological rather than formal architectural questions.

New archaeological evidence allows us to, literally, flesh out the Byzantine house through its engagement in precise ecologies, its inclusion of organic matter and even its incorporation of human bodies. A softer archaeological lens reveals soft tissues of domestic architecture less evident under the harder lens of architectural studies. We look at three categories of artifacts. First, we consider the burial of family members within the house floors. Fetus burials from Athens, domestic family tombs from Chersonesos, or hospice burials from Corinth highlight the Byzantine practice of in-house burials. Second, we consider other living forms involved in the construction of Byzantine houses. A geological study of mortar samples from the Peloponnesos reveals the incorporation of organic material in the making of the walls, typically collected from the community’s own trash heaps. Such organic inclusions complement our knowledge of animal sacrifice during foundation rituals. Third, we consider the ecological niches that different Byzantine settlements engage and the environmental exploitation evident in the houses, from the woods used in construction to the woods used in firing the hearths.

If we admit all this organic evidence into the discussion, we can stipulate an anthropological tension between hard and soft architectural entities. Walls, floors and ceilings formed the physical envelope of Byzantine life. Houses prescribed social life (eating, sleeping, working, playing, praying, procreating) but also embodied deceased organic life. Investigating this type of flesh more broadly allows us to challenge our assumptions of architectural meaning in Byzantium. Masonry was not an inert as the modern scholar would have it. Masonry lived, breathed, listened and occasionally spoke.

Houses are a paradigmatic building type that cannot be separated from the processes of developmental psychology. From early childhood, houses articulate the distinction between animate and inanimate powers that culture proceeds to formulate. To use Sigmund Freud’s terminology, our notion of home incorporates its correlate, “the unhomely” or “uncanny.” Contemporary architectural theory has embraced Freud’s canonical essay on (“Unheimlich,” 1925) in the postmodern armature. Marrying the theoretical uncanny with new archaeological data sheds light on the Byzantine house and throws a wrench (perhaps a toy-wrench) into the stony assumptions of Byzantine architectural history.

My Powerpoint presentation had 60 slides but, unfortunately, I cannot include it here because much of what I showed is still unpublished. The image above is an Early Byzantine doll excavated in Karanis and now at the Kelsey Museum, see E. Gazda, Karanis: An Egyptian Town in Roman Times (Ann Arbor, 1983) 29, fig. 52, reprinted in Maguire et al., Art and Holy Power in the Early Christian House (Champagne Urbana, 1989) 228, no. 146.

I was thrilled to be included in a wonderful company of papers. The panel was not organized in advance, but was selected from blind abstract submissions. Good job to the program committee and the speakers for a truly thought-provoking morning. Stay tuned because we might be podcasting all the papers.

ARCHITECTURAL SPACE: DOMESTIC, ACOUSTIC, MONASTIC
Session VIIC: Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010, 9:00-11:30

Chair: Ida Sinkevic (Lafayette College)

Fleshing Out the Byzantine House
Kostis Kourelis (Franklin & Marshall College)

The Past is Noise: Architectural Contexts and the Soundways of Byzantium
Amy Papalexandrou (Austin, TX)

The Materiality of Medieval Monastic Spaces in Egypt
Darlene L. Brooks Hestrom (Wittenberg University)

Cave-Cells and Ascetic Practice in Byzantine and Crusader Paphos
Nikolas Bakirtzis (The Cyprus Institute)

Miracle and Monastic Space: Hermitage of St. Petar of Korisa
Svetlana Smolcic-Mkuljevic (Faculty of IT, Belgrade)

Kopanos: A Blog Challenge Fulfilled

This entire last weekend, I was physically in Washington, D.C. but mentally in the Peloponnesos. Dumbarton Oaks' annual symposium on Byzantine Studies was devoted to "Morea: The Land and Its People in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade." This was by far the most intellectually fulfilling symposium I have ever attended, brilliantly crafted by Sharon Gerstel (but more about that later). The session was attended by many colleagues associated with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Maria Georgopoulou, Diana Wright, Pierre MacKay, Timothy Gregory, Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory, Glenn Bugh, Sharon Gerstel, Mary Lee Coulson, etc.), all friends who transported me to Greece. In the meantime, another member of the American School was searching the city of Athens for a blog challenge, the search for Isadora Duncan's house at Kopanos.

In my posting, Jogging Empowerment: Kopanos (Apr. 25, 2009), I challenged Antiquated Vagaries to find the house that Isadora Duncan built in 1903. The house is an amazing document of bohemian domesticity, a work of art in its own right, based on the house of Agamemnon. The challenge was met over the weekend. This is incredible. We can all now travel through space and time and share Katie's discovery. The narrative of discovery is just as interesting as the object of discovery. Don't waste your time with my words and immediately go to Success (Antiquated Vagaries, May 3, 2009).

I apologize in advance for the lull in my blog production. Between now and mid-May, I am overwhelmed with lectures, workshops, travel, exams, grading and most importantly planning for my new job, architectural historian at the College of Franklin and Marshall.

Jogging Empowerment: Kopanos

This posting is a test in transnational academic connectivity. It is the kind of challenge one might encounter in an episode of the Amazing Race, the popular CBS reality show going on its 14th season. I set the challenge for Antiquated Vagaries, a terrific blog documenting the experiences of Katie, an American graduate fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA). Antiquated Vagaries has been posting on ASCSA history from research trips to the basement of the Archives, Loring Hall and from oral histories, see Dudes: Stay Out! (Feb. 2), Dinner Table Art (Feb. 20), School Art 2: Edward Lear (Mar. 12), and Happy Anniversary (Apr. 3).

Antiquated Vagaries has also been posting on jogging, see Jogging in Athens #1: The Olympic Stadium (Apr 22). Athens is a rough city for joggers, let alone pedestrians (who are killed by cars and motorcycles on a daily basis). Posting on jogging routes is, thus, extremely helpful to other joggers (I speak from personal experience, having been attacked by dogs on Lykavittos). But from an intellectual point of view, it extends a venerable tradition of Athenian topography. Direct engagement with the modern city has been central to ASCSA's curriculum since the 19th century. Ask any 60-something American archaeologist about Athens, and they will immediately bring up Eugene Vanderpool, the peripatetic master who discovered countless sites through his hikes with students. Moreover, there is a tradition of women archaeologists whose liberation took the form of walking through Greece--without chaperons or native guides, relying solely on their physical endurance, and on their linguistic and cartographic skills. The diaries of Lucy Shoe, Agnes Newhall, Virginia Grace, Allison Frantz, or Eugene Bush Vanderpool are testament to this peripatetic empowerment from the 1920s.

Antiquated Vagaries is the 21st century version of such diaries. Although Athens is a safe city, women are still confronted by patriarchical obstacles, quite literally ... the exposed phallus. Katie describes an empowering incident by fellow Fellows: "... a few weeks ago a teenager chased after two Associate Members with his junx hanging out. To his dismay, one of those girls turned around, chased him down the hill, grabbed him by the hair, and beat the shit out of him until he cried ... a story with a happy ending! All in all, though, jogging in Greece is a pretty safe endeavor, so don't let the creepo's get you down." Truth be told, that unlike the 1920s, it's only a minority of ASCSA fellows that have enough curiosity about the modern city to venture out of the ASCSA buble today. Kudos to Katie and others for confronting Greek realities face to face and striking a post-colonial victory.

Here is my challenge for Antiquated Vagaries. It's an experiment that hopes to bridge past and present, the U.S. and Greece. In Jogging in Athens #2: The University Run (Apr 23), Katie shows a photograph from the top of Mount Hymmetos. As soon as I saw the photo, I realized that Katie wasn't standing far from Kopanos Hill, where Isadora Duncan, the famous American dancer (above), built a house in 1903. In My Life (New York, 1995, pp. 93), Duncan writes, "The barren hillock, on the same level as the Acropolis, known since ancient times as Kopanos, now belonged to the Clan Duncan. The next step was to secure paper and architectural instruments and make the plans for a house. Raymond found the exact model desired in the plan of the Palace of Agamemnon. He scorned the help of architects, and himself engaged the workmen and the stone carriers." Find My Life on Google books here

So, my challenge for Antiquated Vagaries is to find the house through jogging. I am not sure if the house survives. Athenian topographer Leta Costakis has told me that the house still exists. The only clues I have for Katie are a few published photographs below. Mind you, I am writing this challenge from Middletown, Connecticut, so I cannot join the search. But perhaps this is the beginning of a new game, an ASCSA version of Geocaching. If you have never heard of the game, here is a clue: "Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment."

Spring has arrived, and the human body reclaims the city through exercise. The human mind also reclaims the past. The Kopanos clues below are images from, D. Duncan, C. Pratl and C. Splatt eds., Life into Art: Isadora Duncan and Her World (New York, 1993), pp. 53, 54, 110.

House Stories: Flipping the Grandparents' House

House Stories is a collection of personal narratives, a teaching experiment in History of Domestic Architecture (Wesleyan ARTS 637). See Introduction, and Table of Contents.

FLIPPING THE GRANDPARENTS' HOUSE

By Matt Strekel

Growing up, there was nothing remarkable about my grandparent’s house in Colchester, CT. They had moved there in 1981 just before I was born from South Windsor, CT. It was a simple house. A raised ranch, built in the late 1970’s, with plans and materials from a Sears store. Mint green vinyl siding clad the house, white vinyl faux-shutters on either side of each window. Nothing, I promise, remarkable about it. The house sits on a little less than four acres, set back far from route 16. My grandmother was passionate about birds and other wildlife. Heading down the driveway always meant seeing deer, fox, and many birds. There were purple martin birdhouses in the front yard, a bat house, and around the back, more birdfeeders and suet cages than you could count.

The inside of the house was certainly remarkable, but not in a good way. My grandparents had owned a travel agency in Colchester after their retirement, and they had traveled all over the world. As part of their travels, my grandmother would bring home wallpaper from Japan and Egypt, and fabric from Panama and Chile. Each wall in the entire house was covered in a different pattern, but brought together through a common color. My grandfather laid the carpet by himself, which means that the floors creaked, and little padding was left between the thin carpet and plywood floor.
My grandmother passed away on April 4, 2004 at 4:04 a.m. (should would have really gotten a thrill about passing away at a date and time that was all 4’s). My grandfather lived for a few years without her, but despite his tough exterior, was very sad and alone without her. Nearly seventy years of marriage is hard to just forget about, and it was hard for him to begin living on his own.

On a Sunday in August 2007, my brother, uncle, and I went to take my grandfather to lunch. It had become a ritual to take him to, what for him, was an early dinner once a month. When my brother and I arrived, my uncle was in the garden, picking through cucumbers and tomatoes that were ripe. The door to the house was locked, which we assumed meant that gramps was in the shower. Not unusual for him to lock the front door until he was ready to go. After about half an hour in the garden, and no sign of my grandfather, we entered the house through the garage and up through the basement. My brother walked up the stairs first, and upon reaching the top, found my grandfather dead on the kitchen floor. He had passed away while washing the dishes, sponge still in hand. I tell you this story not because of my grandparents or to relive fond memories, but about what role that house played for me after his death.

At the same time that we were dealing with his death, I was going through my own tribulation. I was divorcing from my ex-wife, and the opportunity presented itself to move in to my grandparent’s home to “flip it” before we sold it as part of his estate. I had extensive experience flipping entire homes in the Boston area, and it seemed to be a great time to do it. My grandfather was a tough and hard man, and there were few times when his true emotions for both his sons and his grandsons would show through. But we knew that he loved us. Flipping this home was my way of honoring his memory and doing the best that I could to make him proud. One last tribute I suppose.

About twenty-five years in the same house meant that they had accumulated lots of possessions. I was responsible for going through everything that had belonged to them. It should also be noted that I was not yet working at Wesleyan, and flipping this house was my full-time job. I spent a month, full time, going through their life. Slowly but surely things went in to boxes, off with relatives, or in to the basement to be sold at an estate sale. After moving their life in to boxes and selling it off, it was time to start on the house. Peeling wallpaper that had traveled halfway around the world and then painting the walls. For me, it was a job. For them, it was a memory whenever they looked at those God-awful patterns. As I spent nearly 16 hours a day, 6 days a week working on this house, there was lots of time for me to think about them. About growing up with them, spending nights in that house when my parents were away, dinners, Christmas Eve’s, and more. I have always believed that there is little use in associating a person or a memory with a physical object, and that the memory of that person is inside you, not the thing. For me, it was my way of saying goodbye, saying I loved them, and saying that they were wonderful people by fixing up this house. Room by room, I tore off wallpaper, painted, pulled up carpet, laid new carpet, replaced light fixtures and electrical outlets, installed tile and new plumbing, hung new cabinets, and brought in new appliances.

This house was more than a piece of real estate. It was part of my family, held many memories, and was my quiet way of honoring my grandparents. Shortly after finishing my work in the house, I started working at Wesleyan. I lived there for a while after I started working at Wes, while the house was on the market. We sold the house in an awful market; for $80,000 more than had we not flipped the house. I have no doubt that my grandparents were with me the entire time, checking in on my work, encouraging me, and making sure that I was safe and that we got the best price for their home. It was not always easy, but for me now and always, there will be something remarkable about that house.

House Stories: Fred Flintstone Ain't Got Nothing on Me

House Stories is a collection of personal narratives, a teaching experiment in History of Domestic Architecture (Wesleyan ARTS 637). See Introduction, and Table of Contents.

FRED FLINTSTONE AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON ME
by Allison DeMartino

I have never owned a house. I have never gone house-hunting or ever had to set up a mortgage. I have lived in two houses, one dorm, and two apartments. All of which have never belonged to me. I was carried home to one, driven reluctantly to the next, flown nearly 350 miles to the third, celebrated the fourth in dramatic fashion, and become a grown-up in the last. I was the child, and now, the less than one year college graduate playing house and learning that washing dishes and scrubbing toilets is not all it is cracked up to be. My memory of a house is one of a child’s. Everything was gigantic. Walking from the family room up the stairs and into my bedroom was a pilgrimage I rarely felt like taking. A house was a structure, complete with the perfect hiding spots, convenient nooks, and a series of plateaus that when scaled carried you, and your army of action figures to the highest point of the house. A house, to my five-year-old self, was my imaginary and mischievous world.

The house I remember best is not the spot of my first kiss, or the spot of my first driving lesson, or even the spot I signed my college acceptance letter. The house I remember best is the house I first was brought home to and the one I truly left my mark on. Brooklyn NY is one of the largest residential areas in the country and one of the most diverse. You could walk for five minutes and have spanned the countries of Italy, Puerto Rico, and Korea. Yet, something uniquely American can be found in each of the neighborhoods you past. This, here in the Marine Park Italian neighborhood of Brooklyn, was my first encounter with a house.
1828 East 29th Street was attached to 1826 and shared a driveway with 1830. It had a small but seemingly vital front stoop, which upon entry would lead you into the living room—the place I took my first steps, watched my first football game, and opened presents of Christmas Day. The next room was the dining room. I don’t remember much, except for cake. Yes, cake. And loud Italian aunts. This is where we celebrated birthdays, anniversaries and, most importantly ate cake. Last, at the back of the house was the kitchen—or since we had no fireplace—the hearth. This is where mom cooked. This is where I ate salads—well cucumbers, croutons, olives and a large helping of balsamic vinegar—before dinnertime every night. These rooms would prove increasingly important to my branding of the 1828 household. You see, the way this house was build and the way my family grew to operate in the morning, my journey from the kitchen table to the front door to then walk the eight blocks to school became somewhat of an adventure; or a mischievous maneuver to avoid my consumption of the orange and grape flavored Flintstones Vitamins given to me at the kitchen table.

For many years parents, especially mine, tired to get me to eat healthy. Despite my nightly bouts with my lettuce-less salads, I was a genuine picky eater and the one thing I hated more then eating yucky food was eating yucky vitamins. Each morning before I set out to school my mom would open the dreaded vitamin cabinet and place Fred Flintstone into my hand. Without hesitation, I would eat the cherry flavored ones, but two-thirds of those bottles contained the worst of the worst flavors imaginable: orange and grape. Five out of seven days I was practically guaranteed a disgusting taste on my tongue. This had to end. Luckily, I soon learned that my mom was far to busy with my little sister Dana to keep a stern eye on me as I walked from the kitchen through the dining room and across the living room to the front door: “You’re five now, you can meet Jen outside to walk to school.” Okay. So my independence from mom and Fred Flintstone began.

1828 was built in the early 1900s. It had cathedral-like windows lining the front of the house and an old-fashion radiator just to the side of the front door. A cream colored metal encasement lined with what seemed like hundreds of holes hid the gurgling heater. Holes large enough for one Fred Flintstone. Each morning after strategically placing Fred on my tongue and refusing to breath as to negate the nastiness of the taste, I would drop him drop through the hole and into the heater. I did this every school day for nearly two years.

My mom is one to clean a lot. She would scrub the bathroom and sweep the floors. But it wasn’t until my parents placed a “For Sale” sign on the front stoop that I would succumb to what would happen next. It was a cloudless June day. A day where you just couldn’t wait to get home just to run back outside and get dirty. I ran up the front stairs, past the chrysanthemum bushes and the “Sold” sticker and threw open the front screen door. And there standing in a baggy old shirt, yellow dishwashing gloves, and flip-flops was my mom. She was not smiling. She was not ready to dig in the sandbox with me. She was staring at me with her hands on her hips and that scary little Italian women expression covering her face. Then she pointed at the radiator. The cream-colored casing was nowhere to be found. Stuck to the radiator and the carpet and the wallpaper was an orange and purple mound nearly a foot high of indistinguishable Fred Flintstones. And Dana sitting in her diaper shouting “Yabba Dabba Do!”
_____

Allison DeMartion is a graduate student at Wesleyan University's Graduate Program in Liberal Studies and a Pre-K teacher in Middlefield, Conn.

House Stories: From 100 to 99

House Stories is a collection of personal narratives, a teaching experiment in History of Domestic Architecture (Wesleyan ARTS 637). See Introduction, and Table of Contents.

FROM 100 TO 99
by Katherine Chabla

Part I: Orientation

The storehouse of my memory opens most fully in a wood frame house on a straight flat suburban street. A short sidewalk, curves up to concrete slab serving as a stopping point, at number 100. From that spot I have counted the steps it takes to get to my current home, another wood frame house. A mere 52 steps, in my short stride, brings me back home again across the street. The house I have lived in since 1986 is one I have known since 1961. I grew up looking out upon its façade, admiring the lines of its entry, knowing its first floor interior spaces but never dreaming that it would one day be mine.

Backing out of the garage in the rear view mirror of the family station wagon I could see number 99, the white colonial house which I now call home. The route I took from 100 to 99 was neither short nor direct as that driveway. It was more like the curving walkway that joined our front porch to the town sidewalk, the street and the world beyond.

My earliest recollection of this house comes not actually from the house itself but from one of the triple bay garage doors. Opening vertically, the paired paneled doors swing out on metal hinges, lock into place, and are released by a pull chain. While functional they create a sound, which in the early morning would drift across the street, past the bold, raucous sounds of blue jays in the dogwood tree outside my window.

Mr. Johnson, a classic New England gentleman, produced that sound with punctuality as he went out to work in his dark green truck labeled in fluid gold letters “Johnson Brothers Painters”. I admired that truck, but never went inside it. I loved that man too, for his craftsmanship, his knowledge and because he cared tenderly for Mrs. Johnson, his wife who had become crippled by rheumatoid arthritis. They were the original owners of the house, which they had built in 1930.

As a tradesman he was the expert neighbors would turn to for advice on projects. He was not the know-it-all type, but rather the resourceful sage whom one could go to for instruction on any practical matter. A neighbor told me how Mr. J. would not interfere with efforts over a project, but wait, watching you struggle and fumble towards resolution. He drew the line sharply between knowledge and tools. Knowledge he would lend when asked, never interfering with advice until asked.

Tools which he had in abundance and variety, we would never ask to borrow, as he in fine New England reserve would not lend.

Tools and hard work were the foundation of this house. He built this house with profits from his commercial painting business. Tools were the means by which he supported his family. I learned then that a person reveals much about himself in the use, handling and care of their tools. I heard and saw Mr. Johnson using tools and ladders. His tools led to the soul of this man, the means by which he earned money, what he used to build this house. The 99 house was an extension of my home at 100. I heard it, gazed out upon it and occasionally entered it. I was an admirer, looking out from my childhood home upon the simple lines, the stateliness of a house between two trees, fringed with porches, showing New England grace and reserve.

The two entries intrigued me. On the back porch there was an entry enclosure where we left baked goods, and other food offerings for Mr. Johnson. A small open box was labeled “messages”. It had a circular pattern of holes drilled into it.

The front entryway was a glass enclosure which sheltered the front door. The house protected Mrs. Johnson, who in her later years, spent many hours immobilized by her illness, on the couch in the living room. She endured much disfigurement and pain. Mrs. Johnson was a crotchety character whom I also loved, because she was difficult, demanding. She had the raspy voice of a smoker. Mrs. Johnson could release the front door from the couch via a mechanism which Mr. Johnson had configured. My siblings and I did whatever she wanted. We would bring flowers to her, and go on errands to purchase her cigarettes. We were trained in neighborly compassion. We did not to cut through their yard, ring their doorbell or let others cross the boundary of respect that the house and its occupants merited.

Until, one day, many years later, when my husband did the unthinkable. He told Mr. Johnson, who was then in his late 70’s, a widower of many years, that if he ever considered selling his home we would be interested in buying it. I nearly fainted. The obvious and evident excellence of this house had never occurred to me as anything other than Mr. Johnson’s home. Nor had we discussed this unthinkable plan. As I recovered from the audacity of the statement, we sat in the backyard of my childhood home discussing the merits of the 99 house. When Mr. Johnson died a few years later others were interested in buying the property. His two sons came to us. All the years of neighborly concern and gestures made the house ours. This house was bought with compassion, shown slowly over two and a half decades.

Subsequently, we learned he had designed the entryway while his family rented nearby as the house was under construction. Horses were used to dig out the foundation; peaches were a favorite of the Johnson’s, evidenced by the concentration of peach pits in the spit of ground outside the back door. He taught my dad how to harvest and make beach plum jam.

His spirit is here, we summon him, when needed. I petition him regularly when I can’t figure out some domestic mystery. He comes through for us. He scribed shelves and storm windows with numbers, left his lead based paint formulas on the work bench in the basement. Mr. Johnson provided a personal narrative which we found behind the wallpaper, which he hung on winter months when his own work was slack. They are dated letters, note weather and economic considerations, and are poignant missives from his inner self. In one he awaits the arrival of his first grandchild, in another he sadly notes that his wife is no longer able to ascend the stairs.

We are happy to inhabit his house, it has become our home. His frugal economy and hard work during difficult times made it his. Money, good fortune and foresight on the part of my husband made it ours. It was his architectural eye which made me consider the possibility of making Mr. Johnson’s house our first home. In the years of staring out the windows of 100 I never considered I would live here. Forty years later, I still recall the squeaking metal sounds of Mr. Johnson opening the swing doors of the garage. Now that sound is ours, as it resonates through the years.

Part II: Disorientation

A mockingbird calls in the hush of night, repeating harsh tones from a tree top height deep in the hours of darkness in which we lay dozing. Awakened, I respond and reach, with some type of muscle memory, for the first available light switch that will not disturb the dreams of others. I drop my left hand down along the cream colored wall seeking the thermostat and switch. It is not there.

The house I awoke in is across the street from where I grew up. They do not share the same layout. Memory reaches out and turns on the light in the household of my youth. The switch is there, not here, it never was. Light switches don’t move, at least not overnight.

Tonight, here in the home of my adulthood, all our children are dreaming. Now downstairs, in the darkness of my dining room I check to the right of the door molding. The switch is there, but I no longer need it. Touching, without flipping it, assures me that I inhabited the house of my childhood in my dreams. When I awoke to the call of the bird, I reached for the light switch in the house of my youth. Reassured, I go upstairs again, to return to our sleeping family, here in the house which holds our dreams.

House Stories: Introduction

In my History of Domestic Architecture class, we are not only surveying a chronological history from Neolithic settlement to the present submortgage crisis, but we are also exploring the complexity of narratives surrounding houses more generally. We take theoretical digressions into Freud's un-homely (unheimlich/uncanny), Marx's fetish, Heidegger's being-dwelling-thinking and Alfred Hitchcock's films (where houses become characters). In order to open up the discussion, I asked all the students to write a personal narrative involving a memorable house experience. These House Stories were inspired by Studs Terkel's oral histories, by StoryCorps, by Dave Eggars’ 826 Valencia and by other interviews that I have been collecting. The result was so impressive that I am compelled to post the essays. It’s hard not to envision a published anthology sometime in the future. My class is taught at Wesleyan University Graduate Liberal Studies Program. The graduate students have a variety of professional experiences; they range from high-school teachers, to museum curators, librarians, fundraisers, physical plant specialists and artists. I want to thank the students for giving me permission to post their stories.

Click here to read all the House Stories.

Teaching Thursday: History of Domestic Architecture

This week I started teaching my first class at Wesleyan University, in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program (GLSP). For years now, I had been thinking about a class that introduces the history of houses from antiquity to the present concluding, of course, with the domus of the sub-mortgage crisis. Beyond a chronological survey, I envisioned an introduction in the methodologies and theories of house architecture. Luckily, others were intrigued and History of Domestic Architecture (ARTS 637) quickly filled its enrollment. In our first class, I was thrilled to meet the GLSP student body, adult students, mostly high school teachers. Connecticut's secondary education system rewards teachers who receive a Master's in the Humanities. The class includes other professionals, such as curators at the Yale University Art Gallery, Wesleyan employees, contractors and real estate specialists. I don't think there are too many schools that offer histories of domestic architecture. If anyone would like to replicate or build on this class, I would be more than happy to share my electronic bulk pack (PDF files). The syllabus follows.

Kostis Kourelis

History of Domestic Architecture

Wesleyan University, ARTS 637, Spring 2009

Class: Monday, 6:30-9:00 pm, Fisk Hall 115

Email: kkourelis@gmail.com

Tel: 860-685-0150

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Domestic form has captured the cultural imagination throughout history. From Adam's house in paradise to Mohammed's house in Medina, from modernism's "machines for living" to postmodernism's "MacMansions," houses offer unique evidence for exploring the relationship between pragmatic shelter and social identity. This seminar offers a systematic introduction to the history of domestic architecture. We will learn about primitive huts, the Greek oikos, the Roman domus, the villa, the castle, the palazzo, the mansion, the plantation house and its slave quarters, Victorian suburbs, slums and tenements, bungalows, housing projects, postwar suburbs and post-industrial exburbs. At the same time, we will investigate how the discourse over physical form constructed social notions of dwelling and philosophical notions of being. We will read selected texts from literature, religion, philosophy, psychology and sociology to illuminate the fundamental role that huts, houses and hoods have played in shaping cultural history.

Sources to be studied include house architecture, primary and secondary scholarship related to the history of domestic architecture from antiquity to the present. The majority of the readings will be available as PDF documents on the course website. Two required textbooks are available at the bookstore.

Wright, Gwendolyn. 1981. Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 93-113, 158-176.

McAlester, Virginia and Lee McAlester. 1984. A Field Guide to American Houses, New York.

CLASS REQUIREMENTS

Grades will be based on homework assignments (40%), class assignments and participation (40%) and a short final research paper (20%).

SCHEDULE

1. The Primitive Hut

Humanity’s transition from a state of nature into a state of civilization has been narrated through the construction of the first dwelling. The origins of architecture have been theorized along with the origins of language. By investigating the “primitive hut” across cultures and theorists, we will set the stage for the discursive depths of a simple hut. We will look at both ethnographic huts, and also at the foundations of architectural theory in Vitruvius (1st c.), Marc-Antoine Laugier (18th c.), Gottfried Semper (19th c.) and others.

Vitruvius. 1^st c. BCE. “The Origin of the Dwelling House,” from The Ten Books of Architecture (II.1), trans. Morris Hicky Morgan, New York (1914), pp. 38-41.

Laugier, Marc-Antoine. 1753. “General Principles of Architecture,” in An Essay on Architecture, trans. Wolfgang and Anni Herrmann, Los Angeles (1977), pp. 11-13.

Semper, Gottfried. 1851. “The Four Elements of Architecture: A Contribution to the Comparative Study of Architecture,” in The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann, Cambridge (1989), pp. 102-110.

Le Corbusier. 1923. “Regulating Lines,” in Toward a New Architecture, trans. Frederick Etchells, New York (1986), pp. 69-72.

Oliver, Paul. 2003. “True to Type” ch. 3, Dwellings: The Vernacular House World Wide, New York, pp. 64-83.

2. Oikos, Domus, Villa

We will start our historical survey by investigating the ancient Greek house from an archaeological point of view. The Greek oikos and the Latin domus gave birth to theoretical considerations from oikonomia (economy), equality, citizenship, democracy and the creation of the civilized polis. The Roman villa, our second building type, will reveal the relationship between the arts and domestic architecture. We will move away from the city and consider the house in a rural context as a unit of agricultural production and ecology.

Nevett, Lisa. 2007. “Housing and Households: The Greek World,” in Classical Archaeology, ed. Susan E. Alcock and Robin Osborne, Malden, pp. 203-223.

Bergmann, Bettina. 2007. “Housing and Households: The Roman World,” in Classical Archaeology, ed. Susan E. Alcock and Robin Osborne, Malden, 224-243.

3. From Castle to Palazzo

Chronologically, we move away from antiquity into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Both periods have left us with two unique domestic forms. We will study the sociological dimensions of castles and palazzos, and, more importantly, how they contributed to the self construction of their elite occupants.

Stalley, Roger. 1999. “Secular Architecture in the Age of Feudalism,” ch. 4, Early Medieval Architecture, Oxford, pp. 82-101.

Ackerman, James. 1997. “Palladio’s Villas and Their Predecessors,” ch 4, The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses, New York, pp. 89-107.

4. Houses of Enlightenment

During the 18th century, the house became a site for enlightenment, sensual discovery, pedagogy, history and taste. We will read a short treatise, The Little House: An Architectural Seduction, by Jean-Françoise de Bastide (1758) and also consider the elements of culture in contemporary houses like Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Neo-Palladian villas, the Adams style, and the Gothic fantasies of the Romantic movement.

De Bastide, Jean-Françoise. 1758 (1996). The Little House: An Architectural Seduction, trans. Rodolphe el-Khoury, Princeton, pp. 57-116.

Lewis, Michael J. 2002. “Romanticism,” ch. 2, The Gothic Revival, New York, pp. 36-57.

5. Structures of American Life

When the first British settlers arrived in North America, they transplanted medieval European domestic traditions to a new continent. We will study the Puritan house of New England, the slave plantations of the South, and the company towns of industry. At this point, our story will take a particularly American (and familiar) flavor.

Deetz, James. “I Would Have the Howse Strong in Timber,” ch. 5, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life, New York, pp. 125-164.

Upton, Dell. 1998. “An American Icon,” ch. 1, Architecture in the United States, Oxford, pp. 16-55.

6. The Cult of Domesticity

Moving chronologically from the 18th and early-19th centuries into the late 19th century, we discover a radical shift in the conceptions of the house. The cult of domesticity and the functional specialization of the family are two new elements that continue to dominate our own concepts of home. We will investigate the Victorian cottages in the garden suburbs and the parallel development of domestic reform and welfare.

Wright, Gwendolyn. 1981. “Victorian Suburbs and the Cult of Domesticity,” “The Progressive Housewife and the Bungalow,” in Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 93-113, 158-176.

Beecher, Catharine A. and Harriet Beecher Stowe. 1869 (1975). “The Christian Home,” from The American Woman’s Home, or, Principles of Domestic Science, New York.

Downing, Andrew Jackson. 1850. “Designs for Villas or Country Houses,” in The Architecture of County Houses, New York, pp. 271-311.

7. The House Beautiful

An under-appreciated side of modern aesthetics is the cultivation of the house as a work of art. Stylistic eclecticism (Italianate, Carpenter Gothic, Queen Anne, Tudor, etc.), the Arts and Crafts movement, the House Beautiful movement, as well as growth of interior decoration as a field of feminine expression upstaged domestic life into the level of self-construction. The

Clark, Clifford Edward, Jr. 1986. “The House as Artistic Expression,” ch. 4, The American Family Home, 1800-1960, Chapel Hill, pp. 103-130.

McAlester, Virginia and Lee McAlester. 1984. A Field Guide to American Houses, New York.

Gere, Charlotte, with Leslie Hoskins. 2000. “The Art of Decoration,” The House Beautiful: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Interior, London, pp. 76-95.

Woolf, Virginia. 1927. To the Lighthouse, London, excerpts.

8. Being, Dwelling, Dreaming: A Theoretical Interlude

Before leaving the 19th century, we will take a chronological break and delve into deep theoretical waters. We will consider the modern house from the perspective of psychoanalysis, Marxism and phenomenology, reading house treatises by Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger respectively. This will offer less insight into the architectural development of the house. Rather, it will remind us of the origin myths with which we started this class and let us appreciate the theoretical significance of the house in modern theory.

Freud, Sigmund. 1925. “The Uncanny,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey, v. 17, London, 1953, pp. 219-252.

Marx, Karl. 1867. “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof,” from Capital: An Abridged Edition, ed. David McLellan, Oxford and New York, 1995, pp. 42-50.

Heidegger, Martin. 1954. “Building Dwelling Thinking,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter, New York (1971), pp. 145-161; reprinted in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell, New York (1977), pp. 320-339.

9. Machines for Living

Modernism envisioned a radical break with the traditional house. According to Le Corbusier, a house should a machine for living. We investigate the fundamental role that dwellings played in the revolution of modern architecture, dwelling in both the innovative and common elements of this new style.

Le Corbusier. 1923 (2007). Towards an Architecture, trans. John Goodman, Los Angeles.

Curtis, William J. R. 1996. “The Image and Idea of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye at Poissy,” from Modern Architecture since 1900, 3rd ed., New York, pp. 274-285.

Rowe, Colin. 1976. “The Mathematics of an Ideal Villa,” in The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays, Cambridge, pp. 159-184.

10. Public Utopias

One of modernism’s most powerful dreams was the eradication of industrial society’s problems, namely the gulf between capital and labor, between the middle class and the proletariat. Modernists tackled society’s foundations by rethinking public housing. We will study the utopian projects of public housing in early 20th century Europe and America.

Wright, Gwendolyn. 1981. “Americanization and Ethnicity in Urban Tenements,” “Public Housing for the Worthy Poor,” Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 114-134, 220-239.

Curtis, William J. R. 1996. “The Ideal Community: Alternatives to Industrial Living,” in from Modern Architecture since 1900, 3rd ed., New York, pp. 240-255

11. Private Dreams

The development of the post-War suburb altered the way that most Americans live. This transformation was fundamentally domestic. The single-owned private home was part reality, part fiction. We will study the creation of the suburb and its relation to both the American dream and the abandonment of cities (white flight). We will conclude with the last episode of this movement, the exburbs and MacMansions, and the effects of this private dream in the urban (neighbor)hood. We will attempt to correlate the hip-hop “crib” with phenomena as diverse as the sub-mortgage crisis, globalization, the abandonment of Projects and the movement of New Urbanism.

Wright, Gwendolyn. 1981. “The New Suburban Expansion and the American Dream,” ch. 13, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 240-262.

Nelson, George and Henry Wright. 1945. Tomorrow’s House: A Complete Guide for the Home-Builder, New York.

Friedman, Alice T. “People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson,” Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History, New York, pp. 126-159.

12. Missing Home

In this final class, we will ask a simple question: Is the quest for “home” a legitimate or a self-deluding project for our times? In order to answer this question we will look at an odd array of case studies: house-museums, fantasies of vernacular, and the return-to-nature. Global warming and ecological concerns have put the design of houses back into the forefront of identity politics. We leave with an open question framed between fantasy and reality.

Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour. 1972. “Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed,” part 2, Learning from Las Vegas, rev. ed., pp. 87-103.

Rybczynski, Witold. 1986. “Nostalgia,” from Home: A Short History of an Idea, New York, pp. 1-13.

Colomina, Beatriz. 1998. “The Exhibitionist House,” in At the End of the Century. One Hundred Years of Architecture, ed. Russell Ferguson, Los Angeles, pp. 126-165.

Domestic Archaeology: House of the Rising Sun

The House of the Rising Sun is one of the best known rock songs, a landmark across many genres: American blues and folk, the British Invasion, garage rock and even punk. Its origins are complicated and contested; people still argue whether it was Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, or The Animals who ushered the song into the popular mainstream. It probably dates to 18th-century American folk tradition but entered ethnographic fact on September 15, 1937, when folklorist Alan Lomax taped a 16-year-old miner's daughter, Georgia Turner, performing the song in Middlesborough, Kentucky. Since then, many have rendered their own versions, from Roy Acuff (1937), Woody Guthrie (1941), Lead Belly (1948), Glenn Yarbrough (1957), to Bob Dylan (1961). The song, however, did not become a classic until 1964, when the The Animals from Newcastle, Britain made it into a number one hit.

The song refers to a New Orleans house of prostitution with a contested archaeological history. Some claim that 826-830 Louis Street is the original location of the house, originating from the name Marianne LeSoliel Levant, the brothel's Madam from 1862 to 1874. There is no proof of this lineage. An 1838 newspaper mentions a Rising Sun coffee house on Decatur Street, and a Rising Sun hotel stood on Conti Street before it burned down in 1822. The latter site was the subject of a 2004 excavation by Shannon Lee Dawdy, now assistant professor of archaeology at the University of Chicago. Dawdy could not conclusively prove whether this was the famous House of the Rising Sun. For Dawdy's fascinating work after Katrina, see John Schwarts, "Shannon Lee Dawdy: Archaeologist in New Orleans Finds a Way to Help the Living," New York Times (Jan. 3, 2006).

More interesting than the song's real archaeology is its idealized archaeological projection. The Animals performed their number one hit in the 1965 music film Pop Gear, surrounded by a fantasized archaeological cage, stripped down in groovy mid-modern minimalism. The clip (seen here) is absolutely stunning. The artistic level of its production is so superior that it makes one wonder what happened to the integration between popular music and the visual arts.

The set design is based on an Ionic colonnade built by purely white thin boards through which The Animals circumnavigate. A yellow wall (matching the band's shirts, beneath their 4-button suits) forms the background and receives both the white thin columns and their intense gray shadows. I've tried to capture the dynamism of this imagined House of the Rising Sun in a sketch at the beginning, but much of the energy of the video comes from the movement of the mobile musicians (Burdon, Valentine, Chandler) around the stationary musicians (Gallagher, Steel), the close ups on Burdon, and the movement of the camera behind the colonnade providing a peculiar (both thin and thick) sense of depth. The set reconfigures the porch of southern domestic architecture, its classical vocabulary, as well as its papery thinness. The composition, however, is entirely modernist with Cubist composition, Constructivist combinations and an Expressionist sense of light.

The L-shaped elements may also remind us of the hang-man games we played as children and, thus, suggest connotations of lynching. Without a doubt, The Animals were aware of Billy Holiday's Strange Fruit. A fascinating song in its own right, Strange Fruit was written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish school teacher from the Bronx. Meeropol cited Lawrence Beitler's graphic 1933 photograph (click here) as inspiration for the lyrics, which he published in a school-teacher union magazine in 1936. Holiday performed the song at the first integrated night club in Greenwich Village in 1939. But this is only a slight, if not sublimated reading.

Overall, The Animals' House of the Rising Sun is pure form. Like the British Invasion in general, the clean-cut gentlemen from Newcastle distilled the southern blues, and repackaged them with a sleek force that could bring down the walls. Cleaned up, the House of the Rising Sun stops being an item of ethnographic "authenticity" and becomes pure libidinal force. Much more than the legendary Beatles, Eric Burdon and The Animals offer the building blocks of a raw subversiveness that leads straight to The Clash. One can clearly see that the architectural style of Deconstructivism begins in 1965. Zaha Hadid, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Liebeskind and other paper-thin superstars suddenly seem derivative. Are The Animals so important? I hope to study more Pop Gear clips and see how other peer groups contributed to punk archaeology. This includes performances by Herman's Hermits, The Four Pennies, Matt Monroe, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas and other slightly forgotten pioneers of what we now group under the category of garage rock.

I must thank my 10-year-old nephew Sean Gray for introducing me to Pop Gear inadvertently. Grandparents Terry and Brenda Gray got Sean a guitar for his birthday in July. During the last few months, Sean has become a studious guitar player, giving his first public recital in Albuquerque, of the House of the Rising Sun. He emailed The Animals video to his uncle and aunt, in case they had never heard of the song before. Since I also got a guitar last Christmas (thanks to Terry and Brenda), I have taken up the challenge of the Rising Sun. Sean is much better than me, but Popi is enjoying the finger picking across the classic Am, C, D, F and E7th chords.

Michigan is the Best

It's been a week since my talk at the University of Michigan. Although short, the trip was intellectually intoxicating. I met so many interesting people, saw so many wonderful things, had so many enlightening conversations; my head is spinning. Michigan truly is an archaeological powerhouse (and I was wrong to think that its glory was connected to individual star faculty). It is also a beacon of Modern Greek Studies, a program well integrated with the archaeology. I'm sure I'll be blogging about my trip for weeks to come, but I would like to briefly list some highlights.

1) Vassilis Lambropoulos and Artemis Leontis are two of the nicest people I've ever met in Modern Greek Studies, and they also happen to be brilliant (each in their own way). Hosting me over lunches, dinners, and drinks, we discussed all kinds of topics, from the future of Byzantine Studies to the complications of Modern Greek and Greek American Studies. Artemis and I are now emailing odd bits and pieces of a larger puzzle that involve American School figures and Eva Palmer Sikelianos, on whom she is writing a cultural biography. God is in the archival details. It was also fantastic to have met Elizabeth Sears (in Art History), who works on social networks in connection to Aby Warburg. I look forward to future conversations.

2) The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology was quite a treat. Although closed for a grand enlargement, Laurie Talalay gave me a full behind-the-scenes introduction. I saw Kelsey's archival photographs, the fresh new exhibitions spaces, and even the storage areas. Michigan's excavations of Karanis in Egypt must have produced the greatest comparanda of domestic artifacts for the Late Roman period. Thanks to the dry climate, there is an amazing array of wooden objects (furniture, toys, locks, architectural elements, brooms, combs, pins, etc). For early Byzantine domestic archaeology, Karanis is a gold mine. The Kelsey is housed in Newberry Hall (1886), a Romanesque Revival building that originally housed the Student Christian Association. Laurie did not fail to show me a spectacular Tiffany window in the auditorium of the original Christian Association (photo), connecting my lecture with the physical fabric. I was also fascinated to learn about Laurie's late mother, Marjorie Talalay, founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Cleveland. Mrs. Talalay brought contemporary art to Cleveland; she tragically died this May in a car accident.

3) After my lecture, Elaine Gazda asked a question about Francis Kelsey's commitment to non-Classical archaeology. In 1895, the AIA went through a little identity crisis. AIA founder Charles Eliot Norton clashed with Classics professors (Francis Kelsey from Michigan and John Williams White from Harvard) over the direction of the institute. But my information comes only from Norton's biography, James Turner, The Liberal Education of Charles Eliot Norton (Baltimore, 1999), p. 369. Elaine Gazda has put me into contact with Hima Mpallampati, a Michigan grad student writing on Kelsey. Hima has discovered that Kelsey was extremely supportive of Native American achaeology even within the state of Michigan. At the end of my talk, I met Christina Crockett, a fountain of knowledge on the Greek Phanariot community in London, who directly inspired the Pre-Raphaelite love-affair with Byzantium. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to visit a Richardsonian church near her house.

4) The worlds of Ann Arbor and Cleveland connect. My friend Jon Seydl tells me that indeed, Marjorie Talalay was a monumental figure in the Cleveland art world and her loss is greatly mourned. Coincidentally, the water-color copy of the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii (commissioned by Kelsey right before his death in 1925) is currently restored at the Cleveland Museum. Drawn by Maria Barosso, the canvas has been the subject of an exhibition and essay by Elaine Gazda, "Replicating Roman Murals in Pompeii: Archaeology, Art, and Politics in Italy of the 1920s, " in Antiquity Recovered: The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum, ed. Victoria C. Coates and Jon Seydl (Los Angeles, 2007). When the Kelsey opens again, the painting will be permanently displayed in a special space replicating the Roman original. That's going to be a double testament to Pompeiian wall painting and 1920s artistic endeavors.

5) The Iggy Pop pilgrimage went great. I visited his home, a trailer park in Ypsilanti, his high school, and other Stooges landmarks. Unfortunately, the Fun House has been torn down. I'm convinced that there are some critical connections between the godfather of punk and Byzantine aesthetics (via modernism and the avant-garde, of course). Proximity to Motown, the Chicago blues, connections to Warhol's Factory and to David Bowie, make Iggy Pop one of the most important case studies for Punk Archaeology. On the plane to Michigan, I finished the excellent biography by Paul Trynka, Iggy Pop: Open up and Bleed (New York, 2007). And who would have known that Iggy Pop has even contributed essays in Classics journals?

6) There was also lots of talk about Byzantine kitchens. Veronica Kalas is writing an article on Cappadocian kitchens, so we discussed the evidence in Greece and the sad state of employment for Byzantine archaeologists. Lots of good stuff in Michigan. I must now order Sufjan Stevens album Michigan to maintain the aura.